Congratulations to our member Scot Gatz, Founder and CEO of Q Digital, featured in the following article from National Geographic: Does travel mean going into the closet? LGBTQ+ tourists face tough choices
Before the pandemic, LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. averaged 6.8 trips per year and spent $63.1 billion annually on travel. LGBTQ+ Americans are also more than twice as likely to have a valid passport than non-LGBTQ+ Americans.
The LGBTQ+ travelers I spoke to cited physical safety as the primary concern for their caution when choosing to come out while on a trip. We ask ourselves: Am I in a city’s gayborhood? Am I alone in a taxicab? Am I in a country where homosexuality is illegal?
“That’s a calculus we sadly have to make,” Scott Gatz of San Francisco tells me. If he feels physically safe, the question for Gatz becomes, “Who is going to hold the discomfort? Me or them?” If someone at a check-out counter sees his wedding ring and asks where his wife is, will he uncomfortably avoid the question—or will he risk flustering the asker by telling them he’s actually married to a man?
Read Full Article Here: https://www.nationalgeographic.com
