The Gay-Friendliest Continent Is…Antarctica?
It has no gay clubs, no gay bars, no gay stores — and still, the continent whose winter is as cold as MARS still rates as the world’s gay-friendliest continent. How did Antarctica become the “World’s First Gay-Friendly Continent?”
Turns out, it is all part of a brainwave from the minds of Planting Peace. Never heard of ‘em? These are the folks that set up an LGBTQ center across from the rabidly anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, and lots of other high-profile buzz-making. Back in March, the group’s president, Aaron Jackson, traveled across the frozen landscape of the southernmost landmass and planted a rainbow flag to 1) declare the rights of all LGBTQ people living and working in Antarctica and 2) use Antarctica’s unique legal position as being owned by everybody and nobody simultaneously as a salvo for gay rights on a global scale.
And just in case you are wondering, Antarctica has a permanent population of about 1000, although that rises during the summer science season to 4000. And to be fair, with scientists tending to be a fairly level-headed bunch, and if we are doing a continent-by-continent average according to headcount, it is actually not that hard to see how Antarctica really can be be considered as welcoming as Planting Peace says it is. You just better able to rock the woolies and pray your Grindr account doesn’t konk out on account of your smartphone freezing up.
If we go by quantity, Wired readers should beam with pride: North America probably rates as the most “gay friendly” thanks to Canada, the USA, and Mexico, with solid support from smaller, but vital, players like Costa Rica and Aruba. New York, Long Beach, Quebec, Los Angeles, Montreal, Vancouver, Miami, and San Francisco are all rightly heralded as gay meccas. Even locales not particularly known as a gay getaway, say Raleigh or Norfolk (and Topeka), still have very strong gay presences, if modest.
But say you want to take Planting Peace at its word. Antarctic tourism is actually flourishing, around 20,000 intrepid souls visit yearly. However, it is not like you can just book a flight; you have to go through a tour company, and while they are myriad, they ain’t cheap. The average cost for a trip waaaay south is $3,500, with the higher fares going up to $12,000. Ouch.
And while I can’t promise you’ll get lucky in the Land of the Penguins, you will the envy of…well, everybody. How many people have Mt. Erebus on their Twitter and Instagram feeds? Support the Gay-Friendliest Continent, I say!
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