As a college town, Ithaca has its fair share of bars, but for the sophistication of a big-city atmosphere, the place to go is Felicia’s Atomic Lounge.

Felicia’s, with its cosmopolitan feel and crowd of twenty-somethings mixed with older adults, is known as an upscale cocktail bar, but it’s also known as a gay bar.

“We don’t identify as a gay bar, but to a lot of the people in town who are gay, they identify us as their favorite bar,” said owner Amelia Sauter.

Felicia’s isn’t the only place in Ithaca to welcome lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. The city is nationally known as a great place for LGBT people to live, appearing on a list of the top ten small towns in the March issue of The Advocate, a national gay and lesbian news magazine. The area’s popularity in the LGBT world also rose in 2006 when Ithaca College was named one of the top-100 LGBT friendly campuses by an Advocate publication.

According to census information for 2000 — the most recent available — unmarried-partnership households of men made up 5.6 percent of the population, while unmarried-partnership households of women made up 11.2 percent.

The city has worked since the 1960s to promote a welcoming community, said Carolyn Peterson, mayor of Ithaca.

“[Ithaca’s strong activist history] certainly would extend itself to a place where we believe strongly in civil rights and human rights being one of the top functions of a community,” Peterson said.

Ithaca was one of the first cities in the country to pass nondiscrimination laws specific to gays and lesbians and later added other gender identities, like transgender. It was also one of the first cities to have openly gay and lesbian candidates run for office, beginning with Roey Thorpe, who was elected to the city council in 1994.

Sauter first came to Ithaca in 1988 to attend Cornell University and said she has spent the better part of 19 years in the town. Seven years ago, after some time away, Sauter moved back to Ithaca with her partner and the two opened Felicia’s four years later.

“We wanted a place where we could get a really good cocktail that was a very groovy setting and kind of hip,” Sauter said. “We also wanted a place where we could be ourselves and where anyone else could come in and be themselves.”

Lis Maurer, coordinator of LGBT Education and Outreach Services at the college, came to Ithaca because she had heard of its big-city

integration in a small-town atmosphere ­— a combination that put Ithaca on the map in the LGBT world years ago.

“The reasons [Ithaca] stood out was because the other cities it kept company with in the very beginning were San Francisco and west Hollywood and the sort of cities you’d expect,” Maurer said.

The area’s smaller size and welcoming attitude is not only attractive to single people, but also to couples looking to raise a family. Diane Feldman, co-chair of the Ithaca Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Task Force, said the organization often receives calls from people wanting to know if what they hear about the town is true.

“Many of the calls that we’ve gotten over the course of time is about ‘I hear Ithaca is a really nice place to raise a family; is that true?’” Feldman said.

In addition to accepting the LGBT community through legislation, the community has created bonds with LGBT residents.

At least three local churches, St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, First Presbyterian and First Baptist Church, welcome all members, though their denominational beliefs are generally unaccepting of homosexual lifestyles. St. Paul’s Reverend Rebecca Dolch said the issue of homosexual congregation members is generally handled on a church-by-church basis.

“Our core belief is that being lesbian, gay, transgender or bisexual is part of the way people were created,” Dolch said.

Around town, LGBT pride stickers can be seen in shop windows. Common Ground, a gay and lesbian nightclub on Route 96B, hosts a variety of events from dances to barbecues. There are also LGBT sports leagues and other active clubs, including bowling, volleyball, ultimate Frisbee and two choruses, one led by an LGBT ally. Allies are straight people who believe in LGBT rights.

“One thing that I love about this town is that there are a lot of allies,” Maurer said. “They are very vocal and very passionate, and that’s something that’s very different than many other places where I’ve lived.”

Both the city and the college, however, are not immune to problems in their LGBT communities.

In April 2005, the gay pride flag was taken from the college’s free speech flagpole, an offense that has happened four times since 2002. The event, combined with racial hate crimes, sparked a campus-wide “Erase the Hate” rally.

“Like any community, sometimes there’s flare-up of biased crimes or hate crimes,”

Peterson said. “But the support not only of the community, the people who live and work here, but legislatively, has been for people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.”

Feldman, who has lived here for 14 years, said there are times when hate crimes are an issue, but the town is quick to deal with problems.

“We continue to have a pretty good police force and a pretty good human rights commission, so they’ve been really good,” Feldman said.

Overall, Maurer described Ithaca as being almost a “post-LGBT world” because the city is so integrated.

“On any given night when you come in to [Felicia’s] there will be quite a mix of gay and straight,” Sauter said. “It’s always totally mixed, and people are fine with that. People accept that and I think embrace that in Ithaca.”