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Europe

Discussion in 'Sexual Orientation' started by Elli7, Oct 6, 2018.

  1. Elli7

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    Hello :slight_smile:

    I would like to know what are the best countries for bisexual/lesbian to live in Europe
    I plan to visit Europe soon and after I want to live there for a while
    I have heard Scandinavian countries are open-mind
    Please, tell me more
     
    Love4Ever likes this.
  2. tystnad

    tystnad Guest

    hey elli0x!

    you say you’re travelling to europe soon, so what i would recommend you greatly is to visit some of the countries that rank well in lgbt friendliness (scandinavia, netherlands, belgium, uk, spain) and just get a feel for them. lgbt friendliness is often misunderstood as an objective thing, but it really isn’t - sure, we can all agree that physical violence against lgbt people is not something we want to become a victim of, but other things are more of a subjective thing. for example, germany was very late with legalising same sex marriage, but large parts of germany have been very accepting of lgbt people for a long time and make great places to live. more so, as a woman, gender equality is going to affect your experience as a queer woman directly: the netherlands, for example, is often named as a great place to be gay, but it performs really poorly in terms of gender equality (especially compared to its peers) which gets in the way of lesbian acceptance a LOT. and lgbt acceptance in theory does not always translate to practice personally. comparing two of the countries i have lived in: in sweden laws generally follow acceptance - which means that by the time same sex marriage was introduced, lgbt acceptance was incredibly high already and today visibility here is so high that you almost see more gay pda than straight pda on the streets of stockholm - whereas in the netherlands laws are generally introduced to increase acceptance, which does not always work and which is partly why lgbt visibility, outside the major cities, is really low and why i will never be able to come out in the town i spent most of my childhood in and where my family lives. as a gay man i would probably have stood a chance - as a gay woman they’ll just silence me the second i try to speak up about it. and what to you expect of a country? if you’re looking for a great separeratist lgbt scene with a gay neighbourhood or lots of clubs or whatever, london, amsterdam and berlin make great spots. if you don’t care much about lgbt exclusive spaces but prefer overall integration and acceptance, scandinavian countries are a safer bet. in general i think it’s safe to say eastern europe might not be ideal to live (russia has anti lgbt laws, belarus has bad homophobic violence, romance is literally deciding whether or not to change the constitution to specify that marriage is between a man and a woman exclusively) but other than that you’ll find that it’s more of a subjective thing. i mean, there are people moving TO the netherlands for its lgbt situation, whereas i couldn’t wait to move away from it again because i just felt trapped in the closet while there. i don’t want to say too much about countries i haven’t lived in because i don’t think you can truly say something useful about a country if you’ve only been there as a tourist and/or read about theoretical lgbt acceptance - which is often different from actual practice.

    other factors come in play as well and depend on your own personal attitude and expectations. in many countries, if you don’t speak the language, it will be difficult to become a part of any community. no matter how lgbt friendly a country is - if you can’t feel at home in the country, that’s not going to matter. how long will you be staying - long enough to learn a language? in many countries english will get you far as a tourist but not for living - jobs or whatever generally require you speak the local language. also, what cultures are compatible with you? europe may be small but each country differs drastically - aside from the whole feeling trapped in the closet part in the netherlands the overall culture worked fine for me, but when i moved to belgium, just 15 minutes away from the dutch border, a country in which people speak the same language as in the netherlands, i was constantly going crazy because the culture did not work for me at ALL. so even though belgium does better in terms of lgbt situation than the netherlands (statistically) i couldn’t possibly keep living there. your profile says you’re from
    brazil, so that may make southern european cultures more easy to adapt than northern ones (scandinavia is often a shock to people from more open, friendly, warm cultures) - how much cultural difference can you tolerate?

    so visit countries! try to look past the shallow tourist life and really get a feel for what the people are like. in amsterdam central you’re unlikely to encounter many dutch people - it’s all tourists - so it’s not going to tell you anything about what living there is like. if you can, venture outside the capital for a bit to understand that lgbt friendliness is also greatly dependent on the location within a country. the netherlands has both amsterdam, which has an image of being super gay, and a bible belt (reformed christians) where being gay will usually lead to you being kicked out of your community. and that’s within a country that’s so small you can never drive more than four hours into any direction without leaving the country! just imagine what differences you’ll find in larger countries like germany or france!

    if you want to know anything specific about living in the netherlands, sweden or belgium (the countries i have lived in) feel free to shoot me a message! for other countries i hope some other europeans pop in for a better perspective :slight_smile:
     
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  3. Broccoli

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    A lot of it is dependent on where in the country you are, not just which country. In general, I would say that most capital/major cities in western Europe are friendly, tolerant and safe for LGBT people but other regions of the same countries can be far less inclusive.
     
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  4. Loves books

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    I agree. Where I live isn't full of gay people but the bigger cities have a larger gay prescence and that's probably the same in every country.
     
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  5. AdityaD

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    It's true that Scandinavians are very open minded people. I have been to Scandinavia and I loved it there. I felt valid for the first time and people there were amazing. You can pick any Scandinavian country and even Finland, all countries are LGBT friendly. Since, I have only been to Scandinavia, I can't tell you about any other countries in Europe personally. But, from what I've heard from my friends and people of the internet is that Germany, The Netherlands, Ireland and Spain are also equally very friendly countries. Amsterdam, Berlin and Madrid has a lot of LGBT population and gay bars and clubs.
    But, I won't recommend you east Europeans countries like Poland, Romania, Hungary etc. because, these countries aren't really as friendly as West European countries. LGBT community in these countries still faces a lot of discrimination and hate crimes.
     
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  6. Elli7

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    Hello again, thank you for all the informations :slight_smile:
     
  7. Elli7

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    Hello tystnad
    I can to tolerate cultural differences, it doesn´t matter if it is more warm or not ^^ I will get adapted quickly as long as it´s a country I´m interested :grin: maybe the cold long winters will be hard in the beginning but that´s fine haha, I like winter landscapes too *-* the minimum temperature I have felt it was +20 C xD but I would like to visit these countries :slight_smile:
    Exactly, I like Scandinavian countries and Germany
    I have been studying german since early this year and I like germanic languages in general :slight_smile:
     
  8. Elli7

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    Hello tystnad
    I can to tolerate cultural differences, it doesn´t matter if it is more warm or not ^^ I will get adapted quickly as long as it´s a country I´m interested :grin: maybe the cold long winters will be hard in the beginning but that´s fine haha, I like winter landscapes too *-* the minimum temperature I have felt it was +20 C xD but I would like to visit these countries :slight_smile:
    Exactly, I like Scandinavian countries and Germany
    I have been studying german since early this year and I like germanic languages in general :slight_smile: