Liechtenstein has no gay bar, no gay club and no gay sauna. What it has is FLay, the association for queer people in the country, and a clubroom in the Mühleholz district of Vaduz that comes as close to a permanent queer space as the principality gets. It sits opposite the Mühleholzmarkt, a couple of minutes from the Mühleholz bus stop.
The room is about 50 square metres: one large room to sit in, a kitchen and a bathroom, with space to grill outside in summer. It also houses FLaYoung, the association's meeting point for queer young people in Liechtenstein. Anyone who uses a wheelchair or has difficulty walking is asked to get in touch beforehand so access can be arranged.
The association was founded in 1998 in the foyer of the TaK theatre in Vaduz, growing out of a self-help group started two years earlier. The name plays on FL, the country's abbreviation, and the English word gay. On its own account it began at a time when same-sex relationships in Liechtenstein were still heavily taboo. It pushed for the registered partnership law that took effect in 2011, which voters had approved in a referendum with 68.8 per cent, then wound down and was revived later.
It has around 60 members. Beyond the clubroom it publishes a queer glossary and a set of German-language pages on transitioning, produces a podcast on discrimination, commissioned a study of queer life in Liechtenstein, and organises the country's Pride.
The people in this picture are AI-generated.
