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MADRID EN TRANSITO: Travelers, Visibility, and Gay Identity

MADRID EN TRANSITO: Travelers, Visibility, and Gay Identity Indeed, contemporary Spain is among the most progressive societies on the planet, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the flowering of gay life. —David Andrusia et al., Frommer’s Gay and Lesbian Europe n the tourist’s snapshot quoted above, Spain — surrounded by superlatives — moves ahead on a global map of advances toward progressiveness. In this map, the “flowering of gay life” is perceived as evidence of historical progress; through the eyes of a gay tourist, Spain proves to be, finally, contemporary. The figure of gay and lesbian tourists “coming out” to the world combines travel and politics in an explicit way. Gays and lesbians traveling around the world as gays and lesbians reveal a map of democracies where it is increasingly conceivable to claim gayness as a way to move across spaces and borders. Gay tourism functions, in this sense, as an articulation between discourses of political rights and transnational displacements in a landscape where national borders are currently being reformulated in both their symbolic and their practical effects. In this context, the gay tourist emerges as a cultural role, a persona that combines travel, social progress, and politics in new ways. “The tourist is http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies Duke University Press

MADRID EN TRANSITO: Travelers, Visibility, and Gay Identity

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References (28)

Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 2002 by Duke University Press
ISSN
1064-2684
eISSN
1527-9375
DOI
10.1215/10642684-8-1-2-57
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Indeed, contemporary Spain is among the most progressive societies on the planet, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the flowering of gay life. —David Andrusia et al., Frommer’s Gay and Lesbian Europe n the tourist’s snapshot quoted above, Spain — surrounded by superlatives — moves ahead on a global map of advances toward progressiveness. In this map, the “flowering of gay life” is perceived as evidence of historical progress; through the eyes of a gay tourist, Spain proves to be, finally, contemporary. The figure of gay and lesbian tourists “coming out” to the world combines travel and politics in an explicit way. Gays and lesbians traveling around the world as gays and lesbians reveal a map of democracies where it is increasingly conceivable to claim gayness as a way to move across spaces and borders. Gay tourism functions, in this sense, as an articulation between discourses of political rights and transnational displacements in a landscape where national borders are currently being reformulated in both their symbolic and their practical effects. In this context, the gay tourist emerges as a cultural role, a persona that combines travel, social progress, and politics in new ways. “The tourist is

Journal

GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay StudiesDuke University Press

Published: Jan 1, 2002

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