This was a fascinating read that led me down a rabbit hole of other queer Forwards content. Thanks for sharing!

I, too, wish to see Wet Gremlins.

My personal rubric, developed with much insight from my husband:

1. If queer peoples’ behavior is criminalized, the place is a strict no-go.
2. If violence against local queer people significantly exceeds levels in my home state the place is a firm no-go.
3. If the place is under autocratic/junta rule, it’s a firm no-go.

There’s a whole tranche of countries I’ll probably never set foot in due to rule 1, e.g. virtually all of the middle east and Africa, but more recently, also US states such as Florida.

There are countries like Belize that I greatly enjoyed visiting, but, once I became aware of the rate of violence against queer Belizeans, I decided I couldn’t support with my tourist dollar. Perhaps if I took great care only to patronize LGBTQ-friendly establishments – and how would we even identify those when sexuality is largely a taboo subject, in country? – I might visit these places again in the future.

Rule 3 is of more recent provenance. It’s a hypothetical at this point, as every place I’ve visited has been under some sort of healthy parliamentary rule. I greatly want to visit Turkey some day, but supporting a profoundly broken system by forking over money to hoteliers and airlines who are more likely than not aligned with AKP, seems like a bad precedent. As under rule 2, I might identify businesses whose values agree with mine, but it would be problematic.

In the US press, there was some coverage of the sier/xier body of neo pronouns for enby people. Are those the ones you mention that didn’t catch on?