Jan Ridenour was driving through Northwest Arkansas after visiting a relative when she stumbled onto Eureka Springs.

She liked it so much, she bought a log house on 40 acres just outside the city and went home to Boulder, Colo., intent on persuading her longtime domestic partner to move with her.

Kim Ridenour, who took Jan Ridenour’s last name 18 years ago, had never been to Arkansas. The two didn’t know anyone and weren’t sure how they would be accepted as a lesbian couple in a small Southern city.

“I was just like ‘No, no, no, ’” Kim Ridenour said.

Twenty years later, the Ridenours have made a life for themselves in Arkansas. Their online consulting business has flourished, and they’ve raised two children, now ages 18 and 23.

About 2, 000 people will converge on the city for its Diversity Weekend that begins Thursday and runs through Sunday. Held four times a year, the festival draws people from far away, even as far away as Asia and Europe, Hot Springs resident Mark Wetzel said.

“Diversity Weekend pretty much fills up the town,” Kim Ridenour said.

Homosexual and transsexual people living in Northwest Arkansas say it’s one of a limited number of social events that cater to them.

An estimated 5, 890 same-sex couples and 64, 424 homosexual and bisexual adults made up 3. 2 percent of Arkansas’ population in 2005, according to the latest figures from The Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law.

The institute estimates that there are 1, 508 same-sex couples and 16, 864 homosexual and bisexual adults in 12 Northwest Arkansas counties: Benton, Boone, Carroll, Crawford, Franklin, Johnson, Madison, Marion, Newton, Pope, Sebastian and Washington.

Homosexual and transsexual residents say that living in Northwest Arkansas has its benefits, such as the small-town atmosphere, natural beauty, and amenities such as shopping and restaurants.

But many lament the limited social venues and a lack of connectivity within their own community.

“There is a fairly large population of people that are gay, lesbian or bisexual, but there is no community,” said Fayetteville resident J. Judd Harbin.

EUREKA SPRINGS Eureka Springs and Fayetteville are considered more gayfriendly than other Northwest Arkansas cities, but as anywhere, there are people who don’t want homosexual or transsexual people in their communities. Eureka Springs is featured in the film They’re Coming to Your Town, released in January by the American Family Association, a nonprofit group that promotes “traditional family values,” according to its Web site. The association didn’t return calls seeking comment, but the Web site says the film describes how a “small group of homosexual activists” have taken over Eureka Springs “which was known far and wide as a center for Christian entertainment.” Wetzel said Eureka Springs has long been a mecca for Arkansas’ homosexual, bisexual and transsexual residents.

“In Eureka, there are no gay bars, but no straight bars,” Jan Ridenour said. “Everyone’s accepted here.”

Freelance magazine writer Michael Walsh moved to Eureka Springs from Chicago in August 2006. Tired of the bustle of city life, he was looking for a gay-friendly rural community. Friends in Berryville told him about Eureka Springs.

“I had the northerners’ perspective of Arkansas as a backward, hillbilly place,” Walsh said.

Eureka Springs proved him wrong, he said.

“It’s an amazingly progressive community,” Walsh said.

There are nearly 60 homosexual-owned businesses in town, he said. The city draws a variety of people, including liberals, religious conservatives, artists and business officials.

“It’s a mosaic of people,” Walsh said. “Eureka Springs is socially a very open place.”

On June 22, 2006, the city started a domestic-partnership registry, written by Walsh and the Ridenours and approved unanimously by the Eureka Springs City Council.

It’s the first such registry in Arkansas, and its passage attracted national attention. The registry doesn’t guarantee benefits but can serve as proof of a domestic partnership for companies that offer benefits to same-sex couples.

More than 140 couples from 35 cities in 11 states have registered, Walsh said.

COMMUNITY Bridgett Kane, 25, moved to Fayetteville two years ago from Newton Falls, a town of 4, 700 in northeast Ohio. Recently divorced after a six-month marriage, she was just coming to terms with her sexuality and needed a change of scenery. Like the Ridenours, she knew nothing about the area. “I dropped everything, packed up my car and came here with nothing,” she said. “I didn’t know what to expect coming to Arkansas.”

Kane found friends and has been dating Courtney Curtis, 21, for a year. Both wish there were more venues for the homosexual community.

Away from a handful of nightspots, there are a few churches that welcome homosexual, bisexual and transsexual people.

The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Fayetteville is part of the Welcoming Congregation Program, an international initiative by the Unitarian Universalist Association to “reduce prejudice by increasing understanding and acceptance” among people of different sexual orientations, the association’s Web site says.

Donna Marie Sawyer-Tindle is president of the Northwest Arkansas Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Community Center. The nonprofit started two years ago to provide services to members in Benton, Washington, Madison and Carroll counties.

The center has 78 registered members and 24 paying members. The center’s Positive Links Buddy Program, a support group for people with HIV and their friends, has 30 members.

At the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, students can join the independent student organization PRIDE (People Respecting Individual Differences and Equality ), said Harbin, the group’s faculty adviser.

The group was founded on the Fayetteville campus in 1983 to provide activities, outreach and education for students “who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning and straight,” according to its mission statement.

Harbin, an assistant to the vice chancellor for student affairs at UA, said membership has fluctuated over the years, with a peak of about 200 students three years ago to about 30 members this semester.

In their daily lives, Kane and Curtis said they may hold hands in downtown Fayetteville in the early evening, but they would be more hesitant to do it late at night when they are more likely to be harassed. In some cities, they would avoid it all together.

Kane said she knows a lot of homosexual people who are afraid of admitting their sexual preferences for fear of negative repercussions from friends, family, co-workers or employers.

Sawyer-Tindle was born a man and was diagnosed with sexual-identity disorder last year. He is undergoing hormone therapy. As an independent information technology consultant, he said he works as a man for fear of discrimination.

Sawyer-Tindle said the area’s homosexual, bisexual and transsexual population is fragmented. People stay in their own social groups. The only things they have in common are “discrimination and politics,” Sawyer-Tindle said.

“We’re a dysfunctional family,” he said. “Is there really a sense of community ? Not unless there’s a common adversary. Then people come together.”