LGBT travellers

[bwv812]

Heterosexual travelers flaunt their sexuality all the time. From sharing a room with a single bed to holding hands, being affectionate in public, or even kissing. This may not be exactly in accordance with local custom (I have seen heterosexual marriages in public, though), but I'm not sure I've ever seen mazeno complain about it before.

[mazeno]

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3956&p=36660#p36660

[faevil100]

What an aggressive response! I will give you the benefit of the doubt and answer as if you are sincerely asking to be educated rather than just taking this as a chance to shout at a gay person.

--
referring to the topic:
what's wrong with you
do hetero say about their heterity on all the ocasions?

"What is wrong with me" is that there are many examples of increasing anti-LGBT sentiment in the area, which is increasingly acted upon violently (plus is actually criminalised still in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan).

The anti-gay "purges" in Chechnya in recent years are well known (e.g. https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/05/08/rus ... n-chechnya) and this is becoming more frequent in Azerbaijan as well (e.g. https://oc-media.org/spate-of-homophobi ... zerbaijan/). There are many other disturbing incidents and trends in recent years across the CIS region - e.g. the Tajik government attempting to draw up a list of every LGBT person in Tajikistan (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... cal-checks), increased public discussion fueling violent movements in Uzbekistan (https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... uzbekistan) and so on. I've even seen speculation that the western tourists killed in Tajikistan a few years ago were killed for being (perceived to be) gay.

The CIS is literally the only region in the entire world where people's acceptance towards LGBT people has decreased in the past decade (https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020 ... -persists/), due to Putin discovering that LGBT people make an excellent scapegoat to distract from domestic issues, which has been seized upon by others in the CIS too.

Iran is another issue altogether, as they still actively execute homosexuals (https://www.dw.com/en/iran-defends-exec ... a-49144899) - I recognise that the chance of a western tourist being affected by this is very small but I would not personally recommend to any LGBT person to travel there (which is a pity as I find Iran one of the most interesting countries in the world).

PEOPLE IN THE STANS RIGHTLY DON'T DAZZLE THEIR SEXUALITY, SO YOU SHOULD
and there is no problem

Unfortunately, people are also targeted because of their perceived sexuality, not because of anything they have said or done in a concrete sense (see the aforementioned links).

don't destroy it with imposed affectation, pretentiousness and exaltation

This doesn't make any sense in English so I can't respond to this part.

well
maybe let's create a topic
hetero travellers

Here we have reached the rock bottom level of "discussion", you are welcome to do so but (white, male) heterosexual people do not face specific additional issues to consider so I am not sure what would be discussed in such a thread.

In conclusion, I do not think that it is impossible to travel as an LGBT person to Central Asia, but it is clear that one must be aware. This is exactly the same as solo female travellers or black travellers - additional potential dangers exist and it would be foolish not to educate yourself in advance, even if the actual chance of anything happening to you remains quite small. That is the point of this topic.

I also pre-emptively acknowledge that homophobia is an issue globally (in fact the worst homophobia I have personally experienced was in the UK).

[faevil100]

Anyway, I actually came here to post that out gay couple Oskar & Dan have recently visited Uzbekistan and I quite enjoyed their videos as a basic overview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mgp3C_23cNQ

[txingu]

Just spent a week each in KZ and UZ with my boyfriend. My (very subjective) digest is that while life is undoubtedly hell for many gay locals, as a tourist you are unlikely to face any problems at all if you act reasonably "normal" (and avoid drunk young men in groups lol). For us, a few weird looks from middle-aged women was all the trouble we had. But do remember you are entering a very different cultural space and act the part...

People will not bother you as you are an outsider and a (paying) guest, but they certainly have opinions so don't corner them into taking a stand by being very obvious, let alone forcing a debate. Even then, sudden sullenness is the worst that could happen in daily interactions.
Accept that it feels threatening to people who aren't used to dealing with it. Many people can sense perfectly well what is going on, but if you leave them the space to ignore it by telling themselves you are "probably just friends" or "just foreigners", they will happily do so. And your money will do the rest.

In the big cities people are used to seeing outsiders, but that doesn't necessarily mean acceptance. Some people will be "curious", some "suspicious", some totally accepting, the vast majority didn't care - or didn't interact long enough to form an opinion. Uzbeks were in general a lot friendlier, hospitality (and the power of money) seemed to be stronger than in KZ. In UZ we also sensed some hints of that "Persianate" homoerotic undercurrent, but that's still very different from Western LGBT notions.