Damian Barr on holiday destinations for LGBT travellers

The world is smaller when you’re gay, much smaller. Whole countries disappear just as surely as Atlantis.

According to The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), there are currently 78 countries with criminal laws against sexual activity by LGBTI people. There are, according to the United Nations, 193 sovereign nations. Maths has never been my strong point, but this means that just over 40% of the world is off limits to me. These states of hate are not terra incognito — I know exactly where they are and what’s there. I wouldn’t sail off the edge of the earth if I ventured there but I might well not come back. Local laws apply to tourists as well as locals. A prison is a prison, dead is dead.

Many destinations I shun for my own petty reasons: I am Scottish and pale, and crisp in strong sunshine; I have an allergy to mosquito bites; I can’t eat tomatoes and some cultures can’t cook without them; I can’t bear steel-drum ‘music’. I could go on. But there are lots of places I would love to go and sights I would love to see. I’ve accepted I will probably never see the Pyramids because I don’t want to risk imprisonment, give my tourist money to an oppressive regime or even just suffer the indignity of my husband and I being sentenced to single beds. You just want a holiday but the local authorities want to know who and what you’re doing in your hotel room. Squinting in the sunlight leaving the airport at Antigua I was met by a billboard plastered with pungent quotes from Leviticus and a cartoon man with a penis in his mouth and a flaming tyre round his neck. I was expecting maybe a garland of flowers or a Pina Colada. I’ve had similar experiences on other Caribbean islands — relaaax man, but only if you sleep with women.

Where else can’t I go? Most of Africa. Some 38 of the 53 African nations criminalise me in some way. Five of the seven countries offering — that word, like a drink before dinner — the death penalty are here: Mauritania, Nigeria, Somalia, North Sudan and South Sudan. I wasn’t thinking of a mini-break to Lagos but that’s hardly the point. Just before Christmas — festive! — Uganda passed its Anti-Homosexuality Act 2014. Execution was dropped from the “Kill the Gays Bill” for life in prison. This law also criminalises people who don’t or won’t report ‘homosexual activity’, effectively turning the population into sex spies. As a final touch it allows the government to extradite gay Ugandans home for punishment. Nice.

The Middle East isn’t exactly rolling out the rainbow carpet with Iran, Yemen and Saudi Arabia all persecuting, imprisoning and executing gay citizens. Israel is a notable and noble exception with equal rights enshrined in employment, adoption and partnership, and Tel Aviv Pride is one of the biggest in the world. Plus, they have some very hot out soldiers.

What about love in a cold climate? I’ve never felt more oppressed than in Moscow. “Don’t meet anyone you don’t know,” one man warned me. “They hunt us here.” I thought he was being melodramatic until I saw that Channel Four documentary. And this was before the new laws.

Of course, feeling aggrieved at not being able to travel to these states of hate is a luxury compared to having to live there. Perhaps by visiting in great numbers we might change these places? But, when it comes to booking my two weeks away, I want a holiday not a campaign. I wonder what it’s like in Atlantis this time of year?

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Damian Barr is the author of Maggie & Me (Bloomsbury, £7.99). Follow Damian on Twitter @Damian_Barr​.