The Risks of Traveling While Queer

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/opinion/sunday/the-risks-of-traveling-while-queer.html

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Do you get excited at the thought of packing up the car and heading home for the holidays or setting off on a cross-country road trip? I don’t.

When my girlfriend, Lara, and I travel on the road, we have to take precautions. We’re constantly on guard against strangers. Lara is a transgender woman of color, and at rest stops I’m never far from her side, guarding her like a Secret Service agent. Lara doesn’t want to stop at gas stations, and she’ll have me pump gas so that no one can see her and try to size her up.

Late one evening this year, Lara and I were driving home to Charlotte, N.C., from Wilmington, N.C., a three-hour trip. We stopped at a service station in a small town called Whiteville. As I filled the tank and Lara sat in the car, I saw a group of people who could have been extras on “Duck Dynasty” gathered by two pickup trucks. I could feel them glaring at us.

One truck screeched out of the gas station, while the other remained. I got into the passenger seat without telling Lara what I saw and fell asleep. About an hour later, she woke me up with words you never want to hear: “We’re being followed.”

For 15 minutes, the high beams on the vehicle mirrored us each time we changed lanes, even when we got off at an exit. Apparently, whoever they were had been following us since Whiteville. My stomach lurched.

When we came to a full stop off the exit, they turned right, and I begged Lara to stop the car until they sped out of sight. Then she quickly got back onto the highway, where I allowed myself to cry and smack the dashboard in angry relief. In that moment, my life more than flashed before my eyes; it was almost gone in the flash of a headlight.

This sort of harassment, and worse, is on the rise. Hate crimes against L.G.B.T.Q. people went up 20 percent in 2016 in nine metropolitan areas, a rise that several studies attributed to last year’s hate-filled election campaign. Last year also saw the highest number of violent L.G.B.T.Q. deaths on record. A study from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs reported the most common forms of violence against L.G.B.T.Q. people were verbal harassment at 20 percent, threats and intimidation at 17 percent and physical violence at 11 percent.

And this violence has increased in 2017. The National Coalition’s midyear report showed a 29 percent rise in single-bias incident reports since 2016. In the starkest of terms, that’s one murder of an L.G.B.T.Q. person per week.

While 10 countries consider “same-sex sexual relations” crimes punishable by death, nine American states criminalize L.G.B.T.Q. people and their behavior in some way. Last year North Carolina became infamous for its “bathroom bill,” the now-repealed House Bill 2, which prohibited people from using the restroom of their choice based on their gender identity. (Per a new bill, cities and counties in North Carolina are prohibited from making their own anti-discrimination ordinances until 2020.)

In the face of hate crimes and anti-L.G.B.T.Q. laws, travelers are often the most vulnerable: If you’re unaware of a state’s laws or unfamiliar with your surroundings, it’s easy to fall into dangerous situations.

In response, organizations have begun to issue state-level travel advisories: After a rash of hate crimes in Missouri, the N.A.A.C.P. issued its first statewide warning for women, minorities and L.G.B.T.Q. people, urging them to use “extreme caution” when visiting the state. In July, California’s attorney general stopped state-funded travel to Kentucky, Texas, Alabama and South Dakota, responding to anti-L.G.B.T.Q. laws in those states.

Travel advisories and bans may seem like strong measures, but they don’t really protect L.G.B.T.Q. people traveling to or through those states. They’re just a way for politicians and policymakers to look as though they’re doing something, slapping states on the wrist with a pullback on economic incentives. Moves like that weren’t going to help Lara and me on that dark North Carolina highway.

Even if L.G.B.T.Q. people survive their incidents, scars are left from the words and actions of their harassers. This year, a man named Joseph Benjamin was driving back from Huntersville, N.C., when a car pulled up next to him. Mr. Benjamin had displayed a rainbow sticker, a symbol of the L.G.B.T.Q. pride flag, on his car for a year and never had a problem. A woman in the passenger seat and the man driving the car put out their wrists and let them go limp, the chiding, stereotypical gesture for a gay man. “It just kind of reminded me of being bullied,” he told me, adding that those two probably felt empowered because of the current social climate.

Because such incidents often involve interstate travel, there is a role for the federal government to play, as well as state and local authorities. But given the current administration and the dominance of many state governments by politicians opposed to L.G.B.T.Q. rights, for now the responsibility falls on us, the community, to protect ourselves.

For example, we need travelers’ guides that provide information on a county-by-county level about what travelers may encounter while they’re driving in these areas. The government already does this, in a way: The State Department provides international L.G.B.T.Q. travel information for those looking to go abroad. It is a sad reality that we need the same sort of guide here in the United States.

The day may come when Lara and I — and countless other L.G.B.T.Q. people — can enjoy safe travel across the United States. But until then, the only people who are going to save us is ourselves.