Minneapolis Council Hears Case for Repealing 1988 Adult Bathhouse Ban

LGBTQ+ individuals faced decades of criminalization and legal discrimination in Minnesota, including criminalized same-sex relationships until recently and exclusion from marriage rights.

Nearly four decades after Minneapolis enacted a ban on adult bathhouses during the height of the AIDS crisis, the city is preparing to reckon with what that prohibition has meant — not only as a public health measure, but as a chapter in the longer story of how societies regulate intimacy and marginalize those who live outside dominant norms. The City Council heard testimony from over thirty residents, most urging repeal, with advocates arguing that criminalization never eliminated risk but only made it invisible — and invisibility, in matters of health and human dignity, carries its own cost.

Minneapolis Council Hears Case for Repealing 1988 Adult Bathhouse Ban

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