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Freedom’s Frontiers: The Travails of LGBT Travelers

  • David W. Austin is a professor at the California Western School of Law in San Diego. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Cagliari Department of Law (Italy) and a Fulbright Specialist at the Jigme Singye Wangchuck School of Law (Bhutan).

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    Mark E. Wojcik is a professor of law at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago. He is also an adjunct professor at the Facultad Libre de Derecho de Monterrey (Mexico) and the University of Lucerne Faculty of Law (Switzerland). He was also a Fulbright Specialist at the Jigme Singye Wangchuck School of Law (Bhutan) and a visiting research scientist at the University of Cagliari Department of Law (Italy).

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Published/Copyright: September 5, 2018
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Pólemos
From the journal Pólemos Volume 12 Issue 2

Abstract

This article considers the status of same-sex couples whose lawful marriage in one jurisdiction may not be recognized in another, or who may face discrimination and criminal penalties for their sexual orientation. The article surveys positive developments that promote equality for sexual minorities rather than their punishment. The degree of positive change varies across countries. While traveling across borders, sexual minorities are often subjected to strange dislocations in time and space: they can accelerate through centuries of struggle to find freedom in foreign lands, or they can be hurled back into the darkness of the closet or, worse, detained in a prison cell. The article also focuses on some of the positive developments – legal and otherwise – that have led to the growth of a gay tourist industry; some of the problems that gay travelers may potentially encounter when crossing into countries where the legal rights of sexual minorities are not safeguarded; and some potential “solutions” that will allow gay travelers to engage in cross-border travel without feeling that they are being forced back into the limiting borders of the closet’s confines.

Keywords: civil rights; discrimination; gay; gender identity and expression; homosexuality; human rights; identity; lesbian; LGBT; marriage equality; same-sex marriage; sexual minorities; sexual orientation; sodomy; transgender; travel

About the authors

David Austin

David W. Austin is a professor at the California Western School of Law in San Diego. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Cagliari Department of Law (Italy) and a Fulbright Specialist at the Jigme Singye Wangchuck School of Law (Bhutan).

Mark E. Wojcik

Mark E. Wojcik is a professor of law at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago. He is also an adjunct professor at the Facultad Libre de Derecho de Monterrey (Mexico) and the University of Lucerne Faculty of Law (Switzerland). He was also a Fulbright Specialist at the Jigme Singye Wangchuck School of Law (Bhutan) and a visiting research scientist at the University of Cagliari Department of Law (Italy).

Published Online: 2018-09-05
Published in Print: 2018-09-25

© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Focus
  3. Law and Borders: Territory, Space and Time between Diversity and Protection
  4. The Law and the Line: The Literary Mirroring of a Paradigm
  5. Half of a Yellow Sun or the Quest for (and Repression of) New Boundaries in Post-Colonial Nigeria: An International Law Analysis
  6. Freedom’s Frontiers: The Travails of LGBT Travelers
  7. Queering the Border: Walter Pater’s “Sebastian Van Storck” and the Apocalypse of the Self
  8. Donʼt Ask Us for Lex. Body Exhibition and Forms of Exclusion
  9. Research
  10. A Revenger’s Tragedy
  11. Translation, Copyright & Authority
  12. Semantics of Chaos: Modernity, Law and the Commons
  13. Tubal, Shylock, and the Myth of Venice
  14. Law Meets Literature: Raphael Lemkin and Genocide Studies
  15. Literature, Art and the Democracy to Come: A Legal Approach to The Danish Girl
  16. Book Reviews
  17. Dale Barleben: Staging the Trials of Modernism. Testimony and the British Modern Literary Consciousness
  18. Lucky Belder Helle Porsdam: Negotiating Cultural Rights. Issues at Stake, Challenges and Recommendations
https://doi.org/10.1515/pol-2018-0017
Keywords for this article
civil rights; discrimination; gay; gender identity and expression; homosexuality; human rights; identity; lesbian; LGBT; marriage equality; same-sex marriage; sexual minorities; sexual orientation; sodomy; transgender; travel

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Focus
  3. Law and Borders: Territory, Space and Time between Diversity and Protection
  4. The Law and the Line: The Literary Mirroring of a Paradigm
  5. Half of a Yellow Sun or the Quest for (and Repression of) New Boundaries in Post-Colonial Nigeria: An International Law Analysis
  6. Freedom’s Frontiers: The Travails of LGBT Travelers
  7. Queering the Border: Walter Pater’s “Sebastian Van Storck” and the Apocalypse of the Self
  8. Donʼt Ask Us for Lex. Body Exhibition and Forms of Exclusion
  9. Research
  10. A Revenger’s Tragedy
  11. Translation, Copyright & Authority
  12. Semantics of Chaos: Modernity, Law and the Commons
  13. Tubal, Shylock, and the Myth of Venice
  14. Law Meets Literature: Raphael Lemkin and Genocide Studies
  15. Literature, Art and the Democracy to Come: A Legal Approach to The Danish Girl
  16. Book Reviews
  17. Dale Barleben: Staging the Trials of Modernism. Testimony and the British Modern Literary Consciousness
  18. Lucky Belder Helle Porsdam: Negotiating Cultural Rights. Issues at Stake, Challenges and Recommendations
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