Wikivoyage talk:Information for LGBT travel

Insensitive?

This: other queer people seems highly insensitive! Is there another way to address the GLBT and those who identify with them other than "queer." I know that WikiTravel apologizes in advance if you find this term offensive, but I think we can use "GLBT". There are benefits to this people will be less offended and its one letter less than "queer" so you save time by writing "GLBT." (WT-en) Sapphire 17:45, 16 Apr 2005 (EDT)

Um, from the article itself:

We use the word "queer" here to refer to GLBT people. It's not meant to be hostile or dismissive, and is used in North America and other English-speaking regions as a positive name. If you're offended or worried by the term, we're sorry in advance.

Not being a delicate shade of lavender myself I'm not the best person to consult on the merits of said terms, but I will oppose "GLBT" just because it's such an monstrosity of an acronym. Would it be too hard to just stick with plain old "gay", or will transgendered crossdressing lesbians get their panties in a twist from this? (WT-en) Jpatokal 17:56, 16 Apr 2005 (EDT)

I think "GLBT" is probably a lot more inclusive than the plain old gay, which is apparently specific to males. Also it it is probably less inclusive than the even more monsterous acronym, GLBTI, which also includes intersex people, and we haven't got as far as hermaphrodites... Unfortunately most of the other word on this subject are either big, insensitive or both. There probably is no word better for the inclusiveness concept than the rather vague queer but then there are not a lot of other sensitive small words to choose from. Though this also reflects the social attitudes that a lot of the cultures have to queer people. -- (WT-en) Huttite 20:36, 16 Apr 2005 (EDT)

Info for editors, info for travelers

I moved the really nice map from this meta page to Gay and lesbian travel. This page is part of our Manual of style, saying where to put GLBT info in the main guides. Gay and lesbian travel is a travel topic (kind of a catchall right now... should probably be broken up soon). --(WT-en) Evan 20:11, 4 Jul 2005 (EDT)

GayGuide in Template

"I dont understand why gayguide should not be part of the template for all cities instead of being just a part of smaller set of information? Gaypopulation has particular interest in certain bars, clubs, gay-friendly accomodation/restaurants places and is usually suffering from homophobia in many even western countries (unless thay are instructed where to be open about their identity and where to be more private). Hope to hear back from you!" - Zb's question, on my talk page [Lionfish].

Should I have deleted these? They didn't have much content, and they broke the template. Also, there was already alot on the topic under "Drink" in Cologne, for example (also could be under "Understand").

• Cologne with 'Gayguide': [[1]].
• Berlin with it: [[2]].
• Prague with it: [[3]].

Someone else can decide about this. -- (WT-en) Lionfish 10:59, 16 Apr 2005 (EDT) (17:00 BST)

Hey, take a look at Project:Information for gay and lesbian travellers for the current policy on this. I also posted this link on Zb's talk page... (WT-en) Majnoona 11:25, 16 Apr 2005 (EDT)

If (WT-en) Zb wants to change the template for articles to include a section for GayGuide then it should first be discussed at Project:Article templates. Frankly, I do not see the need for such a section. Information like this should be included in the specific listing, or an appropriate section, such as Understand or Stay safe. Having a section devoted to a special interest group could see Wikivoyage as being biased and skewed to a particular group of travelers. Wikivoyage should cater for everyone, so our articles should be written from that viewpoint - neutrality - including all cultures, genders and orientations. In many respects, Zb's approach smacks of segregation and discrimination rather than inclusiveness and acceptability of diversity. I question if Zb has really thought that approach through properly and the downstream implications. Besides if (WT-en) Lionfish had not deleted the sections, someone else would have, (like me), and not even felt guilty about it. Also the removal is justified because it's not policy, yet. -- (WT-en) Huttite 17:37, 16 Apr 2005 (EDT)

I think the guidlines say it pretty well, but I just want to reiterate the fact that we do want this information in our guides-- it's just a matter of where it shows up and in what context. This is probably clear already, but I wanted to say it again... (WT-en) Majnoona 19:41, 16 Apr 2005 (EDT)

Thanks Maj and Huttite for sorting this out! I'm only an occasional contributor, and don't feel like I have the authority to deal with stuff like this ;P TY! (WT-en) Lionfish 05:42, 17 Apr 2005 (EDT) (11:43 BST)

Glad we could help. But really, you do have the "authority" (whatever that means on a wiki!) to make any changes you feel are needed. Of course, everyone else also has the same authority to change it back ;-) (WT-en) Majnoona 09:57, 17 Apr 2005 (EDT)

Lesbian And Gay Travel Info

First of all I would like to mention that I am a complete Wiki NewB - so please feel free to inform me if I am asking questions in the wrong place or generally making a mess of things - I will try not to be offended :)

I thought that a small piece in a countries entry about it's gay and lesbian policies might be helpful to some visitors to WikiTravel. It could be concidered vital info for those visitors and could prompt more detailed info to be made available in other areas such as regional and city guides etc.

I could start with info about New Zealand where I lived most of my life for instance, and I am sure that every region has at least one contributor who is has knowledge on this subject. Even non-gay editors are likely to know the law/attitudes in their own country.

Off subject - I will try to help fill in some of the general info that has been requested about New Zealand's South Island over the next few months. I can see that it is sadly lacking in some areas.

Again, please inform me if I don't do things in the correct way. I may be new to Wiki's but I am not not new to the internet and have developed a thick 'cyber skin' over the years :)

Check out Project:Information for gay and lesbian travellers which covers the basic policy of what we really do want to cover and where to put it. Also Gay and lesbian travel covers some of the travel topics and pointers that could be of help.

The "Stay Safe" section is pretty important for many reasons, but it often lacks content. For example it's only recently that we added warnings for countries where Homosexuality is punished with death -- a pretty serious omission. We appreciate any contributions you have on this topic!-- (WT-en) Colin 22:04, 15 January 2007 (EST)

OK - I see a point - but are you not limiting the Wiki?

I got the idea that a Wiki should strive to be "a point of reference for all people' - ask a question and hopefully the Wiki will have the answer.

To quote a paragraph from one of the links you gave - "Finally, there are any number of different kinds of travelers who may have special needs -- senior travelers, travelers with children, disabled travelers, etc. Having different sections for each would make the destination pages unnecessarily cluttered, and would probably cause some duplicate information.".

The Wiki, I thought was to make as much information as possible available to as many people as possible.

The script that makes a Wiki possible leaves the options open to create simple links to info for gay, disabled, single female etc travelers. So why not? :)

Rather than make a page "unnecessarily cluttered", its making more info more relevant to more people - --(WT-en) Damian 22:59, 15 January 2007 (EST)

What info do you think is lacking? Only things that are exclusive to a particular country should go on that country (or city) page, everything else can go in one of the pages that Colin mentions above. Beyond specific safety info that is specific to that destination and isn't just common sense, and the occasional hoppin' gay bar listed in the drink section, what else is specific to g&l's that doesn't apply to everyone else? (WT-en) Cacahuate 23:55, 15 January 2007 (EST)

I am not sure what you are saying? - "Only things that are exclusive to a particular country should go on that country (or city) page"

That seems very odd. Every Country, City or Region has a template that makes sure there is info that is consistent with the site as a whole. Thats very noble - but I am also gay, unfit and my partner is/was in a wheelchair. Maybe you cant cover all those scenarios on one page, but why restrict WikiTravel to just 'able bodied 18-30 heterosexuals'?. I would have thought that the whole concept of a Wiki demands that all persons have a say in its production.

Again - the alternative is a Wiki for Gay travelers, disabled travelers, single females etc etc - the format is available here on 'WikTravel' for all of that to be covered - its just a simple link. Its such a simple thing to do - who here doesn't know what the rights of a disabled traveler to your city center is? You can share that info or not.

Yes, nobody's arguing with anything you just said. Maybe I was just being overly helpful in trying to point out to put 'general' info about GLBT travel into the Gay and lesbian travel topic page, and info that is specific to a certain destination on that page.

Regarding your above comment about the comment about cluttering up pages with all of those sections, if there's something very relevant for one of those groups then list it in the appropriate place on the page. The policy is simply saying not to create an entire section in an article for one of those groups. For instance, in Sudan you can be executed for homosexuality, so that's something you would want to mention in the "stay safe" section on the Sudan page. West Hollywood may have a hotel that is "gay friendly", so if that's relevant then mention that in the hotel's description, but there's no need to create a whole section of "gay friendly hotels", since heterosexuals likely stay at those hotels too.

But enough talking in generalizations, add some stuff you think is relevant, and if anyone disagrees or things it belongs in another place then we can talk about a solution then!  :) | (WT-en) Cacahuate 05:20, 16 January 2007 (EST)

Our policy for information for gay and lesbian travellers is that we want to have such information included in the main guide articles for a place, not spread out over several different articles. There are a lot of reasons: firstly, about 98% of what gay and lesbian travellers are going to do, they'll do the same as anyone else (go through customs, ride the metro, see the museums). There would be a lot of unnecessary duplication and redundancy if we had separate guides for gays and lesbians. Second, it's very easy to tag bars, restaurants, and hotels as gay-friendly, without separating them into a different section or guide. Most such establishments will also cater to other people, too. Thirdly, wiki works best when everyone is working on the same article -- not working on umpteen little personal articles.

That all said, I think that if there's some location that has so much information specific to one particular sub-group of travellers (travellers with children, senior travellers, disabled travellers, gay and lesbian travellers, women travellers) that it overwhelms the "general" destination guide with information that may not be useful at all to travellers not in that group, we may want to consider moving that info to a separate travel topic. We already do it with fields of pursuit, like Literary London and Off-road vehicles in California. I think we'd have to be careful to keep information synched with the main destination guide, however. --(WT-en) evanp 08:46, 16 January 2007 (EST)

LOL - and I'm off..... "How to p#s$ off the natives in one ez lesson" :)

I will leave the whole L&G thing for another day - I have spent most of my life in New Zealand so perhaps my time would be better spent at least starting the stubs for some of the amazing places we have down their :) Looking forward and beyond - Damian

"Queer" is totally weird here

It has unfortunate historical and other associations, and above all is not necessary. It can easily be substituted. Why bother to use the four-letter abbreviation at the top, then use queer? Tony (talk) 03:55, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

It sometimes is added to the four-letter abbreviation to give LGBTQ, with Q as queer (used as a wildcard for various labels) or 'questioning'. Another common usage is T* where T is transgender and * is the wildcard as used in computer file naming, so TV, TG, TS... K7L (talk) 05:37, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Where is this done? Not in the common parlance, or the mainstream press. If you're referring to arcane academic practices in the field of gender studies, I think that's not appropriate for the usership of this project. Why not choose a term and keep to it throughout, if for no other reason than textual cohesion? Tony (talk) 06:00, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Textual cohesion is good but difficult to achieve in practice on a Wiki without reverting to a committee drafted or Encyclopaedic style of writing. We do have some very good (if idiosyncratic) authors here and we have historically preferred a more florid and colourful style. "Queer" was (and still is in some places) a commonly used self-label. These fashions come and go. GLBT is short enough and inoffensive enough to take it's place, I agree. -- Alice^✉ 06:43, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

The standard abbreviation in the US in the 80s and still the abbreviation with the most Google results is LGBT, with the most politically correct version being extended to LGBTQIA [4]. I'm sure we wouldn't want to use _that_ long abbreviation throughout. I vividly remember ACT-UP demonstrations where one of the standard chants was "We're here! We're queer! Get used to us!" But if "queer" is offensive in some parts of the world, it should be used in this article only in quotes, if at all. If it's not objectionable to ask, where is it purely offensive and not accepted at all by gay and lesbian communities? Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:03, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree it isn't necessary. The meaning is conveyed quite well without it. I also haven't heard of LGBTQ as a common expression. --Inas (talk) 09:06, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Ikan, yes, and as well as ACT-UP, there was Queer Nation, although its wide news coverage at the time belied the fact that it was a hoax! Nevertheless, I agree that GLBT would be a nice neat, cohesive and accessible way of expressing the concept. It's not only used in the US. Tony (talk) 12:14, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I've changed "Queer" to "Gay" or "GLBT" throughout. The positive usage of "Queer" is a niche usage among the highly politicized; unfortunately, the use as a disparaging term is still the most common usage in English. We're here to inform, not to create unintended offence or force language change. -- 212.126.151.188 13:20, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

You are correct. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:33, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikivoyage should have LGBT city articles

This policy page was written back in 2004, and should be reconsidered. First, Wikivoyage should accept LGBT guides for individual cities, such as LGBT Stockholm. There are already city guide articles with a demographic theme, such as London with children, and since many huge cities (New York, Berlin etc) are popular LGBT destinations, the LGBT information might drown in their massive articles. /Yvwv (talk) 14:33, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

My interpretation of this policy page is that it does not forbid LGBT-specific travel topics, like LGBT Stockholm. We may need to clarify this, though.

The guideline talks about not creating a specific LGBT section in the general travel guide for a destination, mainly on the basis that it makes the structure of the article too complex. Travel topics, which stand apart from the parent travel guide, are a different matter. As you point out, travel topics are well established. I don't think the people who formulated this policy intended to prevent the creation of LGBT travel topics in particular (hence the creation and continued existence of LGBT Stockholm).

I hope others weigh in with their own interpretations. Athelwulf (talk) 19:21, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

We, the community, make policy and we can clarify it. Why ever would you not have GLBT Stockholm (and linked clearly from our Stockholm article)? On a tiny, trivial point, it might be neater if we chose a standard abbreviation, (GLBT or LGBT) and then the name of the destination, for these topics. -- Alice^✉ 19:45, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

The fundamental problem would be the unrestricted import of policy pages. Policy needs to be made here on Wikivoyage. /Yvwv (talk) 23:48, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm confident the policy is specifically intended to keep the information together. If by preventing a separate section in existing articles, we force an entirely new article duplicating much of the same information, then it certainly is a failed policy. --Inas (talk) 00:10, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe it's a failure of policy, any more than creating New York City with children was a failure of policy. I think the standardized article format is useful, and the policy of not allowing additional subsections to prevent unneeded complexity seems fair. Maybe it's not an ideal way of developing content, but is there a better way? Athelwulf (talk) 00:47, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I would encourage gay-oriented city guides, travel topics or maybe sometimes itineraries, for much the same reasons I like articles like New York City with children and I wrote a separate Retiring abroad article rather than trying to add retirement info in many country articles. Any of these might be mentioned in a city article — both Toronto's "gay village" and its attractions for kids should be, for example — but they are of zero interest to many travellers so they should not overwhelm the main articles. Pashley (talk) 01:15, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Spot on, Pashley! (Just as long as there is sufficient information right from the minute of creation and not a proliferation of bare-bone stubs). -- Alice^✉ 20:00, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I'd say GLTB articles are pretty important to a not-inconsiderable proportion of en.WV readers, and should be included in the project. The issue then becomes, does the current policy on sex tourism present any problems for such articles? GLTB cultures are more overtly defined by sex (I don't mean gender, I mean sex) than non-GLTB culture in just about every society, I think. It's natural that GLTB night-spots in which sex might be a theme, for instance, will feature more often than in other articles. Tony (talk) 13:28, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

The project:sex tourism policy seems to target primarily sex-for-money and underage activity as problematic. While I will disagree with the claim that "GLTB cultures are more overtly defined by sex (I don't mean gender, I mean sex)" unless you remove T - which has *everything* to do with gender - from that, there is no reason why an LGBT wiki expedition would need to generate the sort of content (such as dirty old men buying the favours of 14-year-old boys in third-world slums) which would cause trouble policy-wise. See Project talk:Sex tourism policy. K7L (talk) 13:58, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

[unindent to resume this discussion 7 years later:] The claim in this thread is that "The guideline talks about not creating a specific LGBT section in the general travel guide for a destination, mainly on the basis that it makes the structure of the article too complex." By that's not what the guideline says. Instead, it says this:

However, we feel that sectioning off LGBT information is somewhat discriminatory – almost as if we're saying, "LGBT people go here, and the rest of us will go to all the other places on this page, where you're not welcome." Similarly, some attractions that are LGBT-oriented or LGBT-friendly are open to non-LGBT people, too. Segmenting those attractions off into an "LGBT" section would give the indication to non-LGBT folks that they're not welcome there, either. Travelers should be given information about events and attractions, and decide for themselves whether they want to go there.

So if sectioning off LGBT information in one article implies segregation, that is surely more true when an entire article is separated.

I should say, I do consider "LGBT [Name of Place]" a legitimate travel topic, but nowhere in this thread do I see any attempt to deal with the segregationist implications of such topics.

In terms of complexity, though the word isn't used on the page, there is this:

Finally, there are any number of different kinds of travelers who may have special needs – senior travelers, travelers with children, disabled travelers, etc. Having different sections for each would make the destination pages unnecessarily cluttered, and would probably cause some duplicate information.

That would seem to be an argument in favor of a separate "LGBT [Name of Place]" article when the amount of LGBT information for a destination gets beyond a certain length. And the page does explicitly state that "Nothing in this policy precludes the creation of travel topics such as LGBT Stockholm." But I still think that raising the specter of discriminatory segregation when discussing merely a separate section within an article for LGBT and then permitting that information to be segregated into its own article is illogical, and if we are going to keep the guidelines the way they are, we should probably remove the paragraph about sectionalization amounting to discrimination. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:33, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree. No one actually sees "LGBT travel" as meaning "LGBT people go here, and the rest of us will go to all the other places on this page, where you're not welcome". It's a rather extreme position that gives merit to banning the use of "LGBT" altogether as "discriminatory", but it's a word (or rather acronym) that is actually used to help LGBT individuals find places that cater to them rather than to mark them to be ostracized. It takes a position of "inclusivity" that unintentionally promotes dismantling LGBT venues as "for everyone". While that is in fact the height of inclusivity, it ignores the fact that it is not "the rest of us" that benefit from the separation but rather the LGBT people. Their venues are not exclusive per se, but they actually do want to and need to maintain a predominant image of LGBT exclusivity in their venues in order to prevent them from becoming regular bars/clubs/etc. where you cannot easily find other LGBT people. It's well-intentioned but ill-thought logic, so I support getting rid of that part. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 10:37, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, well stated. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:14, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree as well. Just as you've said, LGBT establishments (by which I mainly mean bars/clubs) are typically sought out mainly by LGBT people, and so it's beneficial for them to be clearly grouped into a subsection of an article rather than having to read through a long set of listings looking for specific details in each one. And if allies want to go to an LGBT establishment, they are welcome to read that section and go to one of those places (and hopefully the listings would make it clear which places welcome allies and which places will give them the cold shoulder). Further, while we typically prefer to group the Eat section by price, that doesn't really make a lot of sense for the Drink section, and articles typically divide some other way such as "coffee / taverns / clubs", and having LGBT as a subsection of Drink doesn't hugely break that kind of categorization. --Bigpeteb (talk) 17:55, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

I support Ikan Kekek's proposal. Ground Zero (talk) 18:56, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Bigpeteb, right now, there is no consensus behind a separate "LGBT" subsection in "Drink" sections. I wouldn't be opposed to it in the instance that there are a very large number of bar listings to navigate through, but we normally avoid long lists, right? That said, if you'd like to propose an end to the guideline against having such sections, please go ahead and make that proposal in a separate (sub)thread. Meanwhile, do you disagree with my proposed change in language in the interim? Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:10, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

I guess I didn't understand. What change are you proposing to the policy text? Apparently it wasn't clear to me what would be added/removed/changed. --Bigpeteb (talk) 23:52, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

The Wikivoyage:Information for LGBT travel#Why there's no "LGBT" section section is at issue:

The Wikivoyage article skeleton templates don't have a "Gay" or "LGBT" section for travel articles. This is by design. Admittedly, it may be convenient for LGBT travelers to find all the LGBT-related information for a destination in one spot.

However, we feel that sectioning off LGBT information is somewhat discriminatory – almost as if we're saying, "LGBT people go here, and the rest of us will go to all the other places on this page, where you're not welcome." Similarly, some attractions that are LGBT-oriented or LGBT-friendly are open to non-LGBT people, too. Segmenting those attractions off into an "LGBT" section would give the indication to non-LGBT folks that they're not welcome there, either. Travelers should be given information about events and attractions, and decide for themselves whether they want to go there.

Finally, there are any number of different kinds of travelers who may have special needs – senior travelers, travelers with children, disabled travelers, etc. Having different sections for each would make the destination pages unnecessarily cluttered, and would probably cause some duplicate information.

I'm proposing to delete the middle paragraph. We'd end up with this:

The Wikivoyage article skeleton templates don't have a "Gay" or "LGBT" section for travel articles. This is by design. There are any number of different kinds of travelers who may have special needs – senior travelers, travelers with children, disabled travelers, etc. Having different sections for each would make the destination pages unnecessarily cluttered, and would probably cause some duplication of information.

Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:18, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

I just realized, this change was never made. It seems like there was no objection, so I'll make the change, probably within 24 hours, unless someone raises an objection. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:10, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Done. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:36, 2 March 2020 (UTC)