Guest article by Hannelore Oberbauer, student at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Instead of relying on hearsay and anecdotes from other travelers, we took a deep look at LGBTQ+ rights, country by country. We’ve gathered data from a variety of trusted international sources to create a “LGBTQ+ Danger Index” that will help you find the worst (and safest) countries for LGBTQ+ travel.
Being born this way can be rough, but one thing should not give you anxiety when you’re trans, bi, lesbian, queer, or gay: travel. Europe, North America, Oceania, Africa, Asia, and South America all have LGBTQ-safe countries where it’s OK to just be you. These are some of the best places for LGBTQ+ travel enthusiasts to go, where queer and trans individuals have important basic rights and protections like marriage equality, constitutional protections, and hate-crime punishments for targeted violence. By looking at the legal rights of each country, we found these top 25 LGBTQ-friendly countries, which often serve as the top gay vacation destinations for travelers the world over:
- Sweden
- Canada
- Norway
- Portugal
- Belgium
- United Kingdom
- Finland
- France
- Iceland
- Spain
- Malta
- New Zealand
- Netherlands
- Denmark
- South Africa
- Ireland
- Australia
- Uruguay
- Colombia
- Austria
- Germany
- Slovenia
- Luxembourg
- United States
- Guam
One country might surprise you for not ranking highly on our list: the United States. One reason for that is, of course, that there is a great deal of variation in gay rights depending on the state you’re in. There are also no constitutional or broad protections for LGBTQ+ rights under federal law in the U.S. Also, in some states, LGBTQ+ youth do not have access to helpful information, with these so-called “no-promo homo” laws counting in the “propaganda/morality” category. The U.S. might have come far, but it has a long way to go in terms of LGBTQ+ rights, especially for young transgender people.
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