Ranking LGBTQ-friendliness
The SPARTACUS Gay Travel Index has found that Canada and Sweden are the two friendliest travel destinations for LGBTQ tourists, with Germany a close third. The annual index analyses 197 countries and territories and rates them based on how safe and welcoming they are for LGBTQ travellers; Germany’s recent introduction of equal marriage has pushed it up the ranking, and it now is now in joint third place with 11 other countries.
This year’s index also takes into account different countries’ legal stances on transgender people, with Canada scoring particularly highly in this regard. This year, however, both Brazil and the US lost ground in terms of transgender friendliness, the latter largely due to the actions and rhetoric of Donald Trump. Countries such as Saudia Arabia, Qatar and Chechnya scored extremely low on the index, while Israel, Colombia, Cuba and Botswana saw improvements this year.