NEW YORK (AP) — Do LGBTQ+ tourists have a Green Book-like system to keep them safe while traveling in these politically volatile times? They don’t have one. They have a lot.
In recent years, we’ve seen a proliferation of specialized blogs, cruise and tour operators, and accommodation booking sites. There are organizations that certify support for transportation, destinations, and special events. And there are watchdog groups that keep an eye on laws and practices around the world.
“People are concerned because they perceive that in some cases our rights are being violated,” said Mark Chesnut, a New York-based travel writer and speaker with 30 years of experience in the travel industry. “People aren’t going to stop traveling. They’re just being more cautious and taking precautions. They’re choosing their destinations wisely.”
Read reviews. Network with locals. Know your destination’s laws and customs, suggest Chesnut and other experienced LGBTQ+ travelers and allies. Is homosexuality illegal? Is it a taboo that can get you killed? Is it safe to hug or hold hands in public? What are the implications for HIV-positive travelers? What about inconsistent documentation and security scans for transgender people?
Advocates say there are many potential pitfalls for LGBTQ+ travelers, especially couples who want to express their true selves, but the potential dangers should be weighed against the joy of discovering new places, say Stephan Arestis and Sebastien Chanéac, globetrotting couple who run the travel blog Nomadic Boys.
“We gay people have to do a lot more research than our straight friends, who can just hop on a plane and go,” says Arestis, who is Greek Cypriot.
He and Chanéac, a Frenchman, quit their jobs in London (the former as a lawyer, the latter in tech) to make Cyprus their home base, and together they’ve parlayed their experiences over more than a decade into a detailed website and, this year, a handbook for LGBTQ+ travellers, Out in the World: The Gay Guide to Travelling with Pride.
Detailed due diligence helps
Arestis said when she started blogging about a year-long holiday in Asia for friends and family in 2014, it was clear that LGBTQ+ travellers were looking for information.
“After a year or so, we started getting strangers on our site, and we thought, who are these people? They were basically Googling where the gay bars are in Bali, are there gay hotels in Shanghai, is it safe to go to Taiwan? They were finding our content,” he said, because there was almost nothing online about the subject at the time.
Arestis has visited 97 countries to date, including Chaneaq, but has not visited some countries such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia due to security concerns.
On their website and in their book, the Nomadic Boys tell us exactly what they see, combining practical tips with a sense of the political and cultural climate.
In Lebanon, for example, they were terrified when they were told they were blacklisted when they tried to leave the country, and their book also includes this warning about Peru, which “lags behind more progressive neighbors” on LGBTQ+ rights but introduced an anti-discrimination law in 2017.
“Unless you are in a gay-friendly environment, it is advisable to be cautious about public indecency. That said, Peru relies heavily on tourism, so gay travelers will feel safe and welcome,” they advise.
The couple also said they had no problem getting a double bed in any hotel in Peruvian towns such as Barranco, Miraflores, Cusco, Arequipa and Lake Titicaca.
That level of detail and practicality is what attracted black travelers to the Green Book during the Jim Crow era.
Only friendly places or do you go on adventures?
Some LGBTQ+ travelers prefer to stay in safer, more accepting places, as a kind of boycott against more comfortable and hostile destinations, while others venture out of their comfort zone in search of adventure and to support often-oppressed local gay communities.
“This is a really heated debate,” Chesnut said. “It’s a personal judgment and decision that travelers have to make.”
Travel can be especially difficult for transgender people.
Atlanta resident Gabriel Claiborne is co-founder and CEO of Transformation Journeys Worldwide, a training and consulting firm that partners with Fortune 100 companies to create a culture of belonging for transgender and gender diverse people, and serves as chair of the Transgender Advisory Group for the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association Foundation.
Claiborne is a transgender woman who frequently travels the world and, at 6ft 2in tall – even taller in heels – often attracts stares in security queues.
“Just me being there and being visible in the space gets a lot of whispering and staring,” she says. “For transgender people, security screening can be an inciting place because of experiences with TSA agents and other people in line.”
Some transgender people have paperwork where their photo doesn’t match their gender identity, and going through security scanners, where agents must press a button to identify them as male or female, can be a hassle, Claiborne said.
“If we press the wrong button and some part of our body gets flagged, we have to undergo a very provocative physical examination,” she said.
Claiborne does not support boycotts of unfriendly destinations.
“We still have a long way to go, but I’m optimistic about progress,” she said. “The reality is that we can make progress if people stand up and become visible. Until we become visible in spaces where we might be the only person in that room or space that looks like us, people are never going to know what they don’t know.”
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