For years, tongues have wagged about whether America’s 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, practiced what in his day was called “the love that dare not speak its name.” Speculation about the Great Emancipator’s sexuality was largely stoked after the 1926 publication of Carl Sandburg’s biography of Lincoln, in which he described the latter’s relationship with his friend Joshua Speed as having “streaks of lavender — spots soft as May violets.”

Bo’s Beach has reopened with a splash, and the vibes represent that pure Florida Keys magic, yet set right here in sunny South Florida.

When Chinese medical student Li Shiu Tong met Magnus Hirschfeld in Shanghai during Hirschfeld’s 1931 world tour, their relationship — in which Li accompanied and cared for the famed sexologist across continents and the final years of his life — fell quickly into place.

“People think of big cities when they think about the LGBTQ community because it's just more visible there,” said Barry Loveland, co-founder of the LGBT Center of Central PA History Project, explaining that it’s often easier to find and document the stories of queer urban pasts. “The more rural areas, like Central PA — when I started this project 13 years ago, nobody was telling those stories.”

We pulled into the strip mall where Embarcadero 41’s Pembroke Pines outpost lives.