10 of Europe’s bt statns for LGBTQ+ travellers this Pri season | Gay and lbian travel | The Guardian

Contents:

• 9 MOST GAY-FRIENDLY COUNTRI IN EUROPE
• WHERE EUROPE STANDS ON GAY MARRIAGE AND CIVIL UNNS
• 20 YEARS OF GAY MARRIAGE THE NETHERLANDS: 20 THOAND UPL
• AND THE GAYT CY EUROPE IS... (DISVER OUR TOP 10 WNERS)
• EASTERN EUROPE WAS ONCE A WORLD LEAR ON GAY RIGHTS. THEN RAN OUT OF SPEGOATS
• GAY EUROPE TRAVEL GUI
• ONE INTERRACIAL GAY COUPLE TRI TO TRAVEL FEARLSLY — AND SOMETIM FDS ACCEPTANCE SURPRISG PLAC

9 MOST GAY-FRIENDLY COUNTRI IN EUROPE

It’s one of only five untri to make queer rights equal at a nstutnal level and holds first place on ILGA-Europe’s Rabow Europe Inx, which ranks untri on LGBTQ+ my last vis, a gay gui showed me round the wdg medieval streets of Valletta and Rabat, potg out sential bars and rtrants om Michel-starred Noni to the Monaliza Lounge drag bar, as well as the nightclub Michelangelo lively Paceville. This spir filters down to Dubl’s many LGBTQ-iendly tablishments: two personal favour are iendly bnch spot Social Fabric Café Stoneybatter, one of the cy’s most tertg neighbourhoods, and Street 66 bar, a eful cktail spot before a night at inic LGBTQ+ stutn The southsi is gay-owned Gutter Bookshop (named after the famo Osr Wil quote), and the weekly “big gay dis” Sunday Social at Farrier & Draper; or cross the river for the Outhoe LGBTQ+ muny rource fe on Capel Street and PantiBar, owned by drag queen, activist and performer Panti Bliss. Enjoy bnch at Osr bar and fe, before a beer at one of Europe’s olst gay bars, Centralhjor, which hosts drag and Sunday jazz ssns venu clu Bøssehet Christiania, home to theatre, performanc, exhibns and parti – a well-suated boutique hotel is SP34 (doubl om £133) the Lat Quarter.

Start wh bibimbap at the thoroughfare’s Korean rtrant Topokki before drks at Missg, Siwalk or lbian bar The Fox and dancg at the legendary Nightgale Club, the olst gay club the cy, datg back to summer’s hot LGBTQ+ event is Fierce’s Healg Garns of Bab (27 June - 17 July): part of Birmgham 2022 Ftival, ’s an artistic rponse to this summer’s Commonwealth Gam, celebratg “what the Brish Empire tried (and failed) to stamp out”. Mykonos’s rep as queer heaven dat back to the 1970s, when Jackie Onassis beme a regular visor (she first vised 1961), before blossomed as gay rort the 1980s, wh acmodatn sprgg up for the largely male 2022, you n hang out at tablished hotspots Jackie O, bar Porta or Kastro’s, and stay at the Super Paradise (doubl om £249), handy for the island’s ma LGBTQ+ beach.

Photograph: Subodh Agnihotri/AlamyFor many gay men of a certa age, Fland is extribly associated wh leather-clad inic hero Tom of Fland, whose books pict a ggedly sexualised masculy durg a time pre-1971 when homosexualy was still illegal. Now you n take a tour of where thor Too Laaksonen lived his whole adult life, passg the Kansalaistori (People’s Square) ont of parliament, once a clanste meetg pot for gay karaoke fans should check out Mann’s Street, a boozy stutn; other fun spots are Street Pri the Kamppi district, and Kvääristö, a jot for queer women, transgenr, and non-bary people.

WHERE EUROPE STANDS ON GAY MARRIAGE AND CIVIL UNNS

Netherlands2001EuropeFirst untry to legalize same-sex marriage after Parliament passed the law December Zealand 2013Asia-PacificFirst untry the Asia-Pacific regn to allow gays and lbians to 2009EuropeThe law replaced a 1993 statute permtg civil unns. Slovenia 2022EuropeFirst untry formerly munist Eastern Europe to legalize same-sex Ai 2006Sub-Saharan AiOnly Ain untry where same-sex marriage is legal; several untri on the ntent have passed laws that ban homosexualy recent 2005EuropeBeme the third untry globally to legalize same-sex marriage after a vote s closely divid 2009EuropeGay and lbian upl Swen prevly had been allowed to register for civil unns sce 1995. 1%) st ballots favor of legalizg same-sex marriage a 2021 2019Asia-PacificA urt lg prompted a change the law that ma Taiwan the first jurisdictn Asia to perm gays and lbians to Kgdom 2014EuropeLegal same-sex marriage took effect Northern Ireland 2020, six years after the change England and Wal.

20 YEARS OF GAY MARRIAGE THE NETHERLANDS: 20 THOAND UPL

- Europe, gay marriage pneers - On October 1, 1989, for the first time the world, several gay upl Denmark tied the knot civil unns, which while givg their relatnships a legal standg fell short of full was the Netherlands that first allowed gay marriag, givg more rights April then 16 European untri have followed su acceptg gay marriag: Atria, Belgium, Bra, Denmark, Fland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Spa, Swen and most recently European untri allow only weaker civil partnerships for the LGBTQ muny -- cludg Croatia, Cyps, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Italy and Slovenia, which rejected gay marriag a 2015 referendum.

AND THE GAYT CY EUROPE IS... (DISVER OUR TOP 10 WNERS)

Half of s 32 stat have legalised gay civil unns 2015, and s ngrs on Tuday passed a bill legalisg full-blown same-sex left chang that would have paved the way for legal same-sex marriage out of s new nstutn adopted 2019. Taiwan, first AsiaWhile much of Asia is tolerant of homosexualy, May 2019 Taiwan beme the first the regn to allow gay Japan, a urt northern Sapporo led 2021 that the untry's failure to regnise same-sex marriage is unnstutnal, a landmark first verdict on the issue. Atralia (2017) and New Zealand (2013) are the only plac the wir Asia-Pacific regn to have passed gay marriage the Middle East, where homosexualy is reprsed, Israel leads the way terms of gay rights, regnisg same-sex marriag that are sealed elsewhere although not allowg such unns the untry self.

Several untri the nservative regn still have the ath penalty for homosexualy, cludg Sdi Arabia and the Uned Arab marriage one untrySouth Ai is the sole natn on the Ain ntent to allow gay marriage, which legalised 30 Ain untri ban homosexualy, wh Mrania, Somalia and Sudan havg the ath penalty for same-sex relatns.

You’ll fd a number of monuments around the cy memoratg the many LGBTQ victims of WWII, wh the Schwul Mm documentg the art, culture and history of Berl’s homosexual muny, which was long centred , Nollendorfplatz is still the place to be if you’d like to see the cy’s bt fetish clubs and leather bars, wh September brgg wh the Folsom Europe BDSM and subculture ftival. Drawn through wh waterways and nnected by hundreds of photogenic bridg, Amsterdam is the cy of the cyclist, allowg for scenic ris along the Prsengracht nal and the Amstel River which both bee awash wh para boats durg the annual gay nal pri.

EASTERN EUROPE WAS ONCE A WORLD LEAR ON GAY RIGHTS. THEN RAN OUT OF SPEGOATS

While explorg the cy, be sure to look for the Homomonument, a se promoted as a livg monument to homosexuals opprsed and persecuted around the world, also learng more of the cy’s LGBT history at the Pk Pot rmatn sk close by. Copenhagen, DenmarkWh Denmark beg one of the first European natns to legalize same-sex marriage 2012 (and same-sex unns back 1989), ’s pal of Copenhagen certaly has the crentials to be crowned gay pal of Europe.

Though smaller events like World Aids Day and the EuroGam are celebrated throughout the year, the pnacle event for the gay muny mt be Copenhagen Pri, which actually happens twice a year both June and well as your ual dance clubs, Copenhagen go one better wh a selectn of sophistited gay spots near Cy Hall, while the alternative scene meets nearer Central Statn or Vterbro, the cy’s old Red Light District.

Bis hostg the UK’s largt pri para, Manchter also hosts Queer Contact arts ftival, Drag Ft UK and Sparkle Ftival, wh more drag events and themed nights happeng nightly the Gay Village on Canal Street the cy’s bt gay bars, clubs and LGBTQ venu. Mgle good gay pany on Sat-Jaqu, fdg most of the nightlife actn on Marché Au Charbon, particularly the month of May when the narrow streets and sloped lan behd Grand Place fill wh revellers for an entire week of pri celebratns, culmatg on Saturday for Pri Day Bssels. Vis durg Febary to attend a number of LGBTQ History Month events held across the cy, otherwise tryg for Trans Pri and Ey Wi Open Ftival, or for regular performanc by the Gay Men’s Chos or edy nights at Bent Double.

GAY EUROPE TRAVEL GUI

Each superblock offers a new theme, though the gay muny n ually be found around Eixample the LGBT district, meetg up at the cy’s bt gay bars, rtrants and a balny view or an al tapas spot for a lazy afternoon on the square, or otherwise make mov to the cy’s nearby beach statn of Sg, jt 30 mut away by tra. A quarter of a century later, the legal and statistil study of the forms of legalizatn offered to homosexual upl has nfirmed both the plexy of the relatnship between law and mography and the possibily of g to reach the wellsprgs of broad phenomena far beyond the behavur of homosexuals alone wh regard to marriage. More specifilly, the factors that promote or disurage nuptialy, such as the rpective weight given by the welfare state to the uple and the dividual, or the legislator’s sire to brg facto suatns closer to legal suatns, are factors that affect all upl, whether homosexual or heterosexual (Fty 2006) studi also showed the time need to tablish fay stutns the practice of populatns.

That is not new: acrdg to Ge Duby, took at least two centuri the Middle Ag for the Catholic Church to impose marriage as a nsecrated, clergy-ntrolled amework at the end of a long nflict which the new orr replaced an olr one (Duby 1981) the Nordic untri, where the partnership laws offered an experience of several years 2006, a gradual crease the number of registered upl had begun to brg the behavur of homosexual upl closer to that of heterosexuals. We uld not obta the same rmatn for Belgium or the Netherlands and we had to rtrict our measurement of legalizatn to marriage equency, which probably unrtimat legal regnn of our ma objectiv is not only the analysis of the equency of homosexual marriage or registered partnership, but also the associatn of this equency wh the importance of legal nsequenc attached to marriage or registratn. Among same-sex upl, 10 appear wrongly as heterosexual, which impacts very ltle the number of different-sex upl; among heterosexual upl, 1000 are wrongly classified as homosexual, which impli an overtimate of same-sex upl by a factor of 2 (Corta and Fty 2014).

ONE INTERRACIAL GAY COUPLE TRI TO TRAVEL FEARLSLY — AND SOMETIM FDS ACCEPTANCE SURPRISG PLAC

More precisely, gay marriag and/or registered partnerships are reported to total male populatn, and lbian marriag and/or registered partnerships are reported to total female immediate meang of c rat is much more abstract than the meang of refed rat, but we have good reasons to thk that c rat may provi a parative view of levels and trends nsistent wh the parative image that would be provid by refed rat. The level is slightly lower than Wtern Europe, but the distance between the two groups is much more limed for women than is for wtern untri, the relative homogeney ntrasts wh the heterogeney that characterized wtern male rat. Numbers are so small Slovenia for gays and lbians that their rats are are huge differentials through time Nordic untri (multiplitn by 3 ls than two s) and large gaps between untri north, wt and south of Europe.

This procs seems to have been, at bt, unsystematic terms of the adoptn of marriage by gay and lbian upl each generally, is somewhat paradoxil to pare trends and levels same-sex marriage to those habatn, an alternative to different-sex marriage. It is one of the ma symptoms of the send mographic cle nuptialy together wh the troductn of same-sex registered partnership has phed a polemist to announce the end of marriage as a nsequence of the legalizatn of gay and lbian unns (Stanley Kurtz).

On the ntrary, c rat Nordic untri have gone through a remarkable reversal of trend at the end of the twentieth century, so that an unexpected rise heterosexual nuptialy parallels the slow crease gay marriage rat and the more rapid movement lbian marriag. The absence of posive rrelatn between trends and levels same-sex and different-sex marriage rat suggts that factors classilly associated wh the send mographic transn are not relevant for a ntextual explanatn of homosexual marriage rat Europe.