West Hollywood is a good place to start. Dance and cruise at Here Lounge (696 N. Robertson Blvd.), for example, which also offers a girl-oriented night, Fuse, on Thursdays. Fiesta Cantina (8865 Santa Monica Blvd.) is for the Mexican-food-eating, serious-drinking boys.
If you adore dives, you don't have to leave WeHo. The Mother Lode (8944 Santa Monica Blvd.) gets the job done with two levels of mirror-enhanced boy-watching. And the hot, dark Fubar (7994 Santa Monica Blvd.) promises to get you liquored up as it packs the boys belly to sweaty belly.
The LA girl-girl scene is diverse (despite what "The L Word" TV show might suggest). Not that femme-lovers won't find happy hunting: Girl Bar (Fridays at Ultra Suede, 661 N. Robertson Blvd. in WeHo) -- run by the original lipstick lezzies since 1990 -- is still popular with the high-heel set. Jewel's Catch One (4067 Pico Blvd. in Silver Lake) is a dance club that also manages a nonprofit. (The same owners run an adjoining nonprofit medical clinic and a halfway house for recovering addicts.) The Normandie Room (8737 Santa Monica Blvd., WeHo) is a low-key, drinks-only, dyke-friendly neighborhood bar. The same owners operate The Palms Bar (8572 Santa Monica Blvd. in WeHo), a higher energy dance and karaoke club, and an unabashedly dyke-oriented bar for 36 years.
The leather and levis, uniform, boot, and cigar crowd can choose from two community institutions in LA, both in Silver Lake. You knew there had to be an Eagle (formerly Gauntlet II) (4219 Santa Monica Blvd.), but there's also the Faultline Bar (4216 Melrose Ave.).
Other GLBT Attractions: