Matador Network's Blog, page 712
January 25, 2021
Canada to close travel loophole
While the United States-Canada border has been closed for most people since March 18, 2020 — and will remain closed through at least February 21 of this year — there’s still an air travel loophole allowing people to travel between the two countries. Now, Canada is working with the US to take away that option.
Bill Blair, Canada’s public safety minister, said in a news conference on Friday, “A loophole, frankly, does exist because the Americans previously had not placed any restriction on international flights coming into the U.S. That concerns us because that restriction is at our land border but not at air travel.”
Since the US doesn’t impose restrictions on air travel from Canada, Canadians can travel to warm US states like Florida and Arizona — both high-transmission states — and then potentially bring the virus home when they return.
While Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau acknowledged that he can’t legally prevent Canadians from traveling, he did hint that it may become much more difficult.
During a news conference, he said, “We could be bringing in new measures that significantly impede your ability to return to Canada, at any given moment, without warning. The bottom line is this: This is not the time to travel either internationally or across the country.”
Potential further restrictions include contact tracing measures, more quarantine requirements, and other enforcement procedures to de-incentivize people from making nonessential trips. 
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Florida ban vaccine tourism
Just as medical tourism has been on the rise the past two years, now vaccine tourism is growing in popularity. Traveling to another state, where COVID-19 vaccines may be more readily available than your own state, has become a common activity. Florida is one of the first states to crack down on the practice, now requiring patients to show proof of residency before receiving their vaccine.
“We’re only doing [shots] for Florida residents. You’ve got to live here either full-time or at least part-time. Now we do have part-time residents who are here all winter,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis told CNN. “They go to doctors here or whatever, that’s fine. What we don’t want is tourists, foreigners. We want to put seniors first, but we obviously want to put people that live here first in line.”
The Florida ban on “vaccine tourism” comes as more people are coming from out-of-state and even internationally to obtain a vaccine, especially from countries where distribution is seriously lagging.
Florida is currently administering shots to people 65 and older, healthcare personnel with direct patient contact, and residents and staff of long-term care facilities. This priority group could prove attractive to people in states that are still only vaccinating frontline workers or people over the age of 70.
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US banning travel from South Africa
To combat the new South African strain of COVID-19, President Biden is banning non-US citizens from entering the country if they have recently been in South Africa. The ban began on Saturday, with the aim of preventing the highly transmissible strain from spreading to the United States.
According to Reuters, Dr. Anne Schuchat, the CDC’s principal deputy director, said, “We are adding South Africa to the restricted list because of the concerning variant present that has already spread beyond South Africa,” claiming that the measures are designed “to protect Americans and also to reduce the risk of these variants spreading and worsening the current pandemic.”
The South African variant, also known as the 501Y.V2 variant, is considered 50 percent more contagious and has already spread to 20 countries. So far, it has not been found in the US.
To further strengthen COVID-19 precautions, the CDC is signing an order today requiring masks on all airplanes, ferries, trains, buses, taxis, and in all ride-share vehicles. Another CDC rule takes effect tomorrow, requiring all incoming passengers on flights to the US to show a negative COVID-19 test taken within three days of boarding.
Although Trump had tried to lift travel restrictions on Brazil, the UK, Ireland, and EU countries before leaving office, Biden quickly reversed that decision. “With the pandemic worsening and these more contagious variants emerging,” said Schuchat, “it’s not the time to lift restrictions on international travel.”
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January 22, 2021
New app for Black LGBTQ travelers
If you’re a white, straight, cis-gendered person, particularly if you’re male, there don’t exist many barriers to traveling the world; there are few destinations where you won’t be welcomed, or at the very least accepted. But for those of us who aren’t this, travel can become immediately more complicated. Not every destination is as tolerant to everyone across the spectrum, and if you identify as LGBTQ+ and as a POC, particularly if you’re Black, ensuring your comfort abroad isn’t as simple as checking a single guidebook. While there are resources for travelers that address these identities individually, very few resources address where they intersect.
We have guidebooks for Black travelers now, certainly. The ABC Travelers Greenbook, published in August of 2020, is an enormous and valuable contribution to the Black travel movement. The guide was created as a reimagining of the Negro Motorists Greenbook, a guide for Black people navigating travel in Jim Crow-era United States. “I wanted to do the same type of thing, but I wanted to do it on an international level,” says Martinique Lewis, creator of the guide.
And what has often been called the gay equivalent of the Greenbook, the legendary Bob Damron’s Address Book, is still going strong in its online iteration, though it serves as a particularly prescient example of why intersectional guides for tourists are so needed. “I believe [Bob] was a very prejudiced man,” said Gina Gatta, currently at the helm of the Damron brand, to LA Magazine in 2019. “I don’t think he liked people of color. And I know he didn’t like dykes. [Bob would] be rolling over in his grave right now if he knew I was running this company.” While both women and people of color have used Damron guides over the years, particularly after Gatta took over operations, it was certainly more difficult for them when the content was aimed at white men.
If you can claim two or more identities that fall under the umbrella of traditionally marginalized groups, you may have felt the sting of endlessly cross-referencing information on a desired destination. And specifically, you may have already felt the disappointment of confirming that a city or country was welcoming of Black people, only to find out it could be dangerous to visit if you’re queer.
Historian and journalist Paula Akpan seeks to change this. What began as frustration when trying to plan a trip with her own partner has morphed into a fully fledged startup dubbed the Black Queer Travel Guide. “With the app, we hope to create a localized digital resource that is filled with content, advice, and recommendations from Black queer travel writers and experienced travelers, meaning that we don’t have to piece together scraps from google searches that mainly pertain to white gay men and cis-het Black travelers,” she tells me of her plans.
Like many Black, queer travelers, Akpan faced her own challenges when planning a trip abroad. “My partner and I were planning a trip to Tanzania back in 2019 and found that our main resources were Google and Wikipedia,” Akpan told me about her frustration in finding resources that would holistically explain what they may face in their travels. “Despite knowing that there are LGBTQ+ folks everywhere, Tanzania included, we didn’t know how to find them and frankly didn’t want to risk our safety or have our first huge trip together marred by looking over our shoulder at every turn.”
The threat to Black queer travelers is more than metaphorical. In 2019, two Black, gay, American members of the Airforce were brutally beaten by a group of Croatian men for “acting gay” at nightclub Opera in the city of Zadar. Ny’Zavian Dozier and Keith Rowe were stationed in Germany but decided to use some of their time off to visit Croatia where the attack occurred. “These guys had every intention of not letting us walk away alive,” related Dozier on his Facebook page. “I have never felt so defenseless in my entire life.”
The owner of the club, Pjerino Bebic, denounced the attack saying, “I condemn any violence,” but went on to say, “we at the Opera have such a relationship that all our guests are welcomed and no one ever looks at skin color, religion or anything like that.” We see here, like in so many other instances of discriminatory violence, that while folks are willing to “welcome” people across a strata of identities, they are frequently less interested in holding everyone across those identities accountable for everyone’s mutual safety.
But truly safe spaces for those at the intersections of marginalized communities do exist, and they exist all over the world. Akpan’s Black Queer Travel Guide seeks to identify these spaces and broadcast their existence to a global audience that is not only interested in visiting them but also rely on places like this to ensure their safety.
Hardly imagined on a whim, taking this project from an idea to a plan took months of research and development. For Akpan, the pandemic provided the perfect atmosphere to lay down the groundwork for the guide. Over the last year, she has taken the time to collect a myriad of resources and perspectives that can aid Black queer travelers globally, and laid the groundwork for an over-arching network of initiatives that will work together under a singular umbrella.
“During the pandemic, I’ve spent four months speaking to over 20 Black queer activists and community organizers around the world,” says Akpan in her GoFundMe campaign, “from Jamaica to Papua New Guinea to Nigeria, finding out about the daily precautions they take in their countries, the grassroots work they’re doing in their communities and how they travel and navigate life.” Armed with this knowledge, she registered the Black Queer Travel Guide as a charitable incorporated company (CIC) and began work on the web application in conjunction with Tech For Better Programme. This collaboration helped Akpan to create the framework for how the app will eventually function, and she imagines a complete rollout to be completed within five years. This will occur in a series of stages.
She is currently in stage one. This includes fundraising, which she has choreographed with GoFundMe. Akpan is asking for 30,000 British pounds and has so far raised about 20 percent. From this crowdfunding campaign, funds will be allocated for graphic design and to hire a moderator, but the bulk of the funds raised are already earmarked to pay contributors.
“As can be seen on the web app, there are placeholders for each country that we believe needed to be written by queer Black writers living in these countries or who have unmatched insider knowledge and can offer authentic information and resources,” she notes in the campaign. She is already actively seeking contributors from around the globe to participate in populating the app with content.
Stage two will focus on the development of a downloadable app. This is when additional features like member profiles, messaging, booking capabilities, and multi-language support will be implemented. Additionally, moving from a web app to a native one will allow better functionality, such as push notifications and a more satisfying overall user experience.
At stage three, with the app and community becoming more established, Akpan will be seeking additional funding and grants to support the project. This will aid her in being able to hire beyond her core team, installing ambassadors in different nations, and consistently publishing more content created by Black queer individuals around the world. Positioning the app and surrounding community as a place for advice as well as support is something Akpan is committed to and believes that this is the best way to address her long term goals for the guide going beyond the initial five-year rollout.
“Black Queer Travel Guide is also more than the app,” she explains, “as a CIC, BQTG is committed to the Black queer communities it will be serving and that’s why funding raised through the app will go into our services of supporting local queer charities and organizations, alongside providing support to Black queer folks who have been harassed, arrested or incarcerated on charges relating to their gender and/or sexuality through financial support for legal services and representation.”
Eventually, she also seeks to implement a conference for Black queer creatives and retreats designed with Black queer people in mind. These types of auxiliary enterprises are what will secure the app as a cornerstone of a broader mission that seeks to support Black queer communities and individuals worldwide.
If there was any doubt that this is a much-needed resource, the feedback Akpan has received has already quelled any lingering uncertainty. “People are excited, which is nice to see,” she tells me. “I think it’s one of those things that should already exist in this format, and it’s surprising that it doesn’t. Despite it being tricky to think about travel in the midst of a pandemic, now that people are getting vaccinated, it feels like there is some sort of end in sight.”
The pandemic has changed our entire way of life, but so many of us, when faced with the prospect of returning to “normal,” feel as if normal was never servicing us to begin with. The dangers that Black people and queer people face individually when traveling abroad are only compounded when they are suffered together, and while the world begins to open up, a resource like this assures that our new-normal better serves the needs of an increasingly large group of travelers.
“I know that potential users are hoping to connect with Black queer communities through the app when the world opens up again,” says Akpan. This app can help us do that.
The post This app will be a game changer for Black queer travelers appeared first on Matador Network.
Romania to lift quarantine
Romania has become the most recent country to make it easier for some travelers to visit. Previously, incoming travelers had to quarantine upon arrival, but the country’s National Committee for Emergency Situations (CNSU) has recently announced that the quarantine requirement will be lifted for those who can prove they’ve had both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and that at least 10 days have passed since the second dose.
No details have been released about which vaccines will be considered acceptable or if any will be inadmissible. Proof must be shown through a “document issued by the health unit which administered it, from Romania or from abroad.”
The decision comes as COVID-19 numbers in the country have decreased and Romania looks toward its economic future, of which tourism is a large part.
Romania isn’t the only country moving to vaccine-related restrictions. The Seychelles, an archipelago off the coast of Africa, is also now open to anyone who’s been vaccinated. More countries are likely to follow.
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10-day quarantine for visitors to US
Earlier this month it was announced that all incoming international travelers to the US would need to present the negative result of a COVID-19 test before boarding their flight, starting January 26, 2021. As of January 21, President Biden has announced even further requirements, including a mandatory 10-day quarantine upon arrival.
In a press conference yesterday, the president explained that anyone — US citizens and permanent residents included — traveling to the US by plane will “need to test before they get onto that plane before they depart and quarantine when they arrive in America.”
The quarantine requirement is currently under review by federal agencies that handle air travel and public health. Once the review is complete, more details will be released. The pre-testing policy will similarly be reviewed by Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, the Federal Aviation Administration, Transportation Security Administration, and CDC leadership.
Biden has instructed the HHS and Homeland Security secretaries to consider which types of COVID-19 tests will be acceptable, how travelers can show proof of their results, and come up with alternative options for those who don’t have access to testing in the country of departure.
It is also anticipated that once the COVID-19 vaccine becomes more widely available, the inoculation will begin to factor into travel requirements in the form of vaccination certificates.
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New African cuisine cookbook
Hawa Hassan grew up in the kitchen, at the feet of her mother and aunties, as they prepared dishes like canjeero and suugo suqaar. She quickly learned that in her family, food was a powerful tool to pull her people together.
“Food has always been the center of community and gathering,” she tells me. “The most important thing you can do to win the love and affection of anyone in your family is to feed them.”
Photo: Jennifer May and Khadija M. Farah/Penguin Random House
But those moments and safety and comfort, surrounded by her relatives, weren’t destined to last forever: Hassan was born in Somalia during a civil war; when she was four, the family fled to Kenya and settled in a UN refugee camp. Three years later, she had the opportunity to immigrate to Seattle, WA, with a group of Somali refugees — but she would have to go alone, leaving her mother and siblings behind. Her mother made the heart-wrenching decision to separate from her daughter, in the hopes that the rest of the family would follow shortly behind. It would be 15 years before Hassan would see her mother again, when she visited her family in Oslo, Norway, where they were eventually able to settle.
Hassan had spent ten years in New York City pursuing a modeling career by the time she arrived in Oslo to reunite with her mother, but once she was in her house again, she was reminded of the ways that food had united her family, and brought them closer together. She decided to remain there for an extended stay, and jumped back into preparing Somali food alongside her mother — in particular a dish known as Somali ketchup, otherwise known as basbaas sauce. Hassan saw Americans begin to embrace flavors inspired by Asian, Indian, and Middle Eastern cuisines. She took advantage of that opportunity, and in 2015, launched her sauce company Basbaas (the line is currently sold out online).
Several years later she teamed up with food writer Julia Bainbridge, and in 2020, the pair published In Bibi’s Kitchen, a cookbook which features recipes sourced directly from family matriarchs from eight countries in Africa: Mozambique, Somalia, Eritrea, South Africa, Kenya, Madagascar, Comoros, and Tanzania.
Hassan, accompanied by photographer Khadija M. Farah, visited these women in their homes, where she interviewed them about their relationship to food, community, and family. Those interviews are featured in this book; it was of central importance to Hassan to allow these women to speak for themselves, to tell their own stories from their perspective.
“It was warm, it was open, it was safe,” Hassan says of the atmosphere she encountered when she entered the homes of the bibis she featured in the book. “I feel a deep gratitude that I was extended the same kind of love and compassion that they have for their own children.”
There are no celebrity chefs, and no stars of the food or travel TV show circuit here. Early on in the introduction, Bainbridge and Hassan write that one fundamental aim of the book is to “use food as a way to honor matriarchs of numerous families and countries.” Hassan chose to acknowledge the African women — grandmothers specifically — who serve as the providers of nourishment and strength in their families. Their cooking might not be flashy — in fact, throughout the book it’s described as wholesome and nutritious — but it doesn’t need to be in order for these women to receive the culinary recognition they deserve.
Photo: Jennifer May and Khadija M. Farah/Penguin Random House
“When I think about food, I think about the women who guided me in life,” Hassan says. “Growing up in the US, it was interesting to me to not see food be centered on the matriarchy. One of my life’s purposes is to use food as an exploration into other cultures, and to start with the most important people, which for me, is always the women.”
In these short interviews, Hassan asks each woman to refute a common misconception about her home country. The answers transform In Bibi’s Kitchen from a simple collection of recipes to a tool for education, a gateway into dispelling ignorance about African people and food.
“My intention in being in food is to dismantle that idea we have of Africa, which is there is hunger and there is AIDS. But it’s a complex, layered place just like the US is,” she says. “And [I want] to really bring it home to the reader that Africa is a continent, not a country, and highlight that there is much diversity between food and people in those countries.”
Hassan recognizes that there are many misconceptions about African culture and food — in part because as she and Brainbrige write in the introduction, “There are barely any cookbooks published by American publishing houses that feature African food…On top of that, so many cookbooks are written and photographed by [people] who are not from the places featured in the cookbook.”
In Bibi’s Kitchen acts as at least a partial corrective to that lack of diversity within the cookbook world, filling in a gap where there should be many more cookbooks about African food by African writers and cooks. Until publishing is more open to working on books about African food, Hassan also sees her cookbook as an opportunity to “dismantle the idea that African food is difficult or heavy,” and that the ingredients are hard to find.
In order to drive that point home, Hassan and Bainbridge characterize the recipes featured here as “easy to make” and “healthy and cookable,” and the ingredients as “widely available and affordable.” And the pair remind readers that their book is not about “what is new and next,” but instead a “cultural legacy” and how recipes “keep cultures intact.”
At the same time, it would be wrong of readers to interpret this book as simply a compendium of “fun ideas of what to make for dinner,” as Hassan and Bainbridge put it in the introduction. Instead, this is a multidimensional work, which encompasses not just what and how people from all over Africa eat, but also stories of “war, loss, migration, refuge, and sanctuary.” In other words, it gives a full picture of the women who shared their recipes, not just as home cooks but as people with inner lives and experiences that break stereotypes about what Americans assume life in Africa is really like.
“My only interest is to be very clear with people that this is a book that can live amongst all the other cookbooks that they have,” says Hassan. “And you know, it’s up to us as readers to learn about other places. And we can do that through food.”
The post ‘In Bibi’s Kitchen’ challenges readers to embrace African cuisine and the women who make it appeared first on Matador Network.
Bali is punishing mask offenders
The police on the beautiful Indonesian island of Bali have found a way to make you follow the law and whip you into shape, all in one. According to Bali law, anyone caught without a mask who cannot pay the 10,000 Indonesian rupee fine ($7) will be forced to perform 50 push-ups, and anyone wearing a mask incorrectly will owe 15 push-ups.
And Bali authorities do not shy away from enforcing the rule. In videos on social media, people can be seen being told to do push-ups by local police officers.
Tourists in Bali are punished with push-ups for not wearing masks. pic.twitter.com/0ykb1lKjYf
— Kgoshi Ya Lebowa (@Marcellomj) January 20, 2021
While most locals comply with mask regulations, officer Gusti Agung Ketut Suryanegara told AFP, “Respect for the wearing of a mask by foreign tourists is very low. 90 percent of offenders are tourists.”
Bali has considered deporting visitors who do not respect the COVID-19 regulations in place, including not wearing a mask where required.
Bali has been closed to new tourists since April 2020.
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Positive sustainability news
This is The Climate Win, the most positive sustainability news around the world every week.
What a week it has been on the climate front. The United States saw the swearing in of a new presidential administration, one with the most ambitious and comprehensive plan for combating climate change in US history. And we’re not talking baby steps. President Biden’s climate agenda looks to reshape major facets of daily life, from transportation to clean energy to the job market.
Biden isn’t wasting any time. On his first afternoon in office, following an inauguration ceremony that included Lady Gaga belting out the National Anthem and 22-year-old Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman bringing the live and digital crowd to its knees with one of the most profoundly epic poetic performances of the past century, Biden walked to the White House and signed the US back into the Paris Climate Agreement. A quick refresher: The US pledged to reduce emissions to 25 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 when it originally signed onto the 2015 agreement.
Also yesterday, the new president put a permanent halt to the Keystone XL pipeline. He revoked the permit allowing for the doomed pipeline’s construction, which upon completion would have carried 830,000 barrels of crude oil per day from Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico. Other immediate actions included the reinstating of more than 100 Trump administration environmental rollbacks — such as tightening regulations for emissions of methane, a gas that traps more heat than carbon.
To be sure, executive orders aren’t themselves going to put the US where it needs to be on sustainability. Biden’s team will need congressional support across aisles. Biden took the Oath of Office pledging unity, and while climate action has certainly not been a unifying topic in the past, it could take a step toward bringing liberals and conservatives together during this administration. Biden’s pick for treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, is a staunch supporter of enacting a carbon tax.
While conservatives tend to shy away from anything including the word “tax,” this one is different because it only taxes businesses as they emit pollution. It works like this: Carbon caps are set on companies and/or industries, and when they exceed those emissions, they pay a fee — the “tax” — with the hope being that a looming financial burden will motivate high-emitting industries to keep their emissions in check.
Essentially, a carbon tax would tax businesses on their carbon emissions with or without environmental regulation, and without set fines and laws spread to all businesses or any individual citizens, which is why pro-climate conservatives and big businesses are more likely to support it. Both Shell and ExxonMobil have expressed support for some form of a carbon tax, for example.
“I do see Republican support, and not only Democrat support, for an approach that would involve a carbon tax with redistribution. It’s not politically impossible,” Yellen said to Reuters in October 2020.
Yellen’s support is outlined in a Bipartisan Climate Roadmap that calls for a $40 tax per metric ton of carbon emissions. That fee would increase by 5 percent every year after enactment, which, according to the roadmap, would cut US carbon emissions 50 percent by 2035 if it came online this year.
A carbon tax could hasten the country’s transition to renewable energy and away from internal combustion engines, if implemented in a way that held companies accountable for emissions produced by the products they made or services they provided. Much like Biden’s executive orders, a climate tax on its own isn’t going to solve the climate crisis — but, in pursuing bipartisan unity, it’s a solid green start.
More climate winsInvestment in solar in Africa is on the rise, according to a report in Quartz. Solar power funding, including to both solar companies and companies working on “solar power ecosystems,” accounted for the second-highest total of investment by industry across the entire continent in 2020.
Des Moines, Iowa, pledged to be run on 100 percent clean energy, 24/7, by 2035, according to a report in Utility Dive. Based on Google’s round-the-clock energy plan, the city will glean all of its energy from renewable sources within 15 years (it’s 83 percent of the way there, already).
We close this week with another firm rebuke of the Trump administration’s anti-climate policies. An appellate court rejected the EPA’s recent attempt to rollback Obama-era limits on carbon pollution from power plants. The Clean Power Plan, the brainchild of incoming climate czar Gina McCarthy, will live on, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.
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January 21, 2021
LGBTQ couples in LDRs during COVID
Ronni Morgan, a 34-year-old living in Fort Wayne, Indiana, spent two weeks in the hospital last February. Soon after she was discharged, cities around the United States issued stay-at-home orders to stop the transmission of COVID-19. That’s when she decided to join HER, a dating app for womxn and queer folx.
“I don’t have to feel bad about the fact that I can’t really go out and do stuff right now,” she thought while recovering from her hospital visit. “I’ll just… see who’s on there, now that we’re all locked down.”
Then she came across Adriane (AJ) Johnson’s profile. Or AJ came across Ronni’s profile — it depends who you ask. Either way, the attraction was mutual, and the two started messaging back and forth.
But meeting in person wasn’t tenable. AJ, a 41-year-old living in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was a two-and-a-half-hour drive away, and the coronavirus was spreading across the country. So, on March 23, AJ and Ronni’s first date took place virtually.
“We kept trying to stop talking,” AJ says of their inaugural hangout, “but we talked until about one in the morning.”
It wasn’t long before talking turned into dating. Between texting, FaceTime, watching Netflix in tandem, and sending each other snail mail, the two spent the following three months forming a close bond from a safe physical distance. They didn’t meet in person until June 26.
Now, the two have been together for nearly 10 months. They’ve only been able to meet face-to-face on three separate occasions, but in talking to them, you’d never know it. Their connection transcends the two-and-half-hours between them. They’ve mastered the art of long-distance dating.
LDRs in the LGBTQ communityLong-distance relationships (LDRs) are inherently queer. The addition of a modifier to the word “relationship” signals that it exists outside the realm considered normal by most of society.
A recent study on dating conducted by the Pew Research Center found that over half of Americans looking for partnerships “probably or definitely would not date someone who lived far away.” But for LGBTQ folx, who defy social expectations when they come out of the closet, LDRs might not seem so scary. “Our community is so used to doing things outside the norm,” says Ronni. Queerness is par for the course.
There’s also an added practicality when it comes to searching for queer love across great distances. “I think LGBTQ+ communities, especially in the Midwest, are relatively small,” Ronni muses. If a queer person exhausts the list of possible partners in their area “… it’s very common for us to look outside of our immediate community when it comes to relationships.”
From the online message boards of the 1990s to the introduction of Grindr in 2009, queer people have a long history of pushing digital boundaries to make connections from afar. Today, lesbian, gay, or bisexual adults are twice as likely as their straight peers to say they’ve used a dating platform that connects them to people they might not otherwise meet in person.
As the pandemic continues to challenge how we interact with one another, it’s time for everyone else to join LGBTQ folx on the LDR bandwagon. With borders closed, lockdowns reinstated, and physical distancing the go-to for in-person contact, maintaining long-distance partnerships is starting to look less queer and more like the new normal.
A marriage beyond bordersWhen Ushi, a 34-year-old fashion designer from Manila, Philippines, met G.H. at a bar during Milan Fashion Week, they hit it off and ended up spending a romantic evening together. Ushi chalked it up to a one-night stand. The next day, he boarded a plane for work in Paris, G.H. left for his home in Switzerland, and it was assumed they’d never see each other again.
But then G.H. friended Ushi on Facebook and asked if he could visit him in France. Ushi, who was sick at the time, said he didn’t know if it was a great idea.
“I can take care of you,” replied G.H.
“Wet met [in Paris], and I extended my trip for another week,” Ushi says. “It was a whirlwind; we just connected quickly.” Still, Ushi had no hopes of continuing the relationship. He was based in Dubai at the time, and dating a man from Switzerland didn’t seem realistic. “Let’s try this for maybe three months,” Ushi thought. “And then three months became six, and six months became a year.”
Ushi and G.H. tied the knot in 2017 with a civil union but have lived in separate countries almost the entire time. (Note: Same-sex marriage only recently became legal in Switzerland; it still isn’t recognized in the Philippines.)
“It’s a weird relationship arrangement,” Ushi admits. He says both partners must be in “100 percent agreement” about the relationship’s rules for it to work. For Ushi and G.H., that means prioritizing clear communication. They make sure to talk every day — be it over the phone, text, or email — and always have a plan for when they’ll meet in person next.
Monogamy is also a tenant of their relationship. “As a gay person, there’s a lot of ‘food’ around that you can taste. It’s like you’re at a buffet,” says Ushi. “But if you agree that you’re exclusive, stick to it.” The same is true for those who practice non-monogamy. “No one judges you as long as you’re both happy,” he adds, and being honest about your needs is imperative for your relationship’s success.
Most importantly, Ushi and G.H. search for balance and reciprocity in everything they do. They take turns visiting one another and sending sweet messages. When things don’t go as planned, they both remember to be understanding, too.
Before the pandemic, the couple tried to visit one another every two months. Each visit was “like a honeymoon,” Ushi laughs. But with international borders closed, they ended up spending most of last year apart. “I was scared for all of 2020,” he admits. “What will happen to us if [the pandemic] doesn’t stop?”
Luckily, G.H. recently received a work visa to join Ushi in the Philippines, and after a two-week quarantine, the couple will live under the same roof for the first time in their marriage.
At first, Ushi was worried. “We’ve never been together in one place for so long — it’s a new experience,” he demures. Close-contact relationships have been Ushi’s definition of queer; distance has been integral to his life with G.H. Still, he’s excited for what the future may bring. “[Manila] is a good place to start a new decade together,” he says.
Long-distance dilemmasAbsence doesn’t always make the heart grow fonder. Just ask Luiz Naranha, a 34-year-old entertainment producer from Brasilia, Brazil.
In 2014, Luiz took a vacation to Recife, Brazil, where he met Marco, an Italian visiting for work. The two men quickly fell in love and decided to continue their relationship when Marco returned to Italy.
In the coming years, “we traveled a lot,” says Luiz, “to Brazil, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal…” While each trip felt like a deliciously indulgent vacation with his best friend, the travel eventually became anxiety-inducing.
“You have to be aware of the money and the time [you spend],” Luiz says. If you’re traveling to a foreign location, “you have to book an Airbnb or a hotel; you have to schedule your free time with another person’s free time.” One missed flight or cancellation can derail an entire trip. Trying to force perfection in the small amount of time shared together can be stressful.
By 2017, Luiz and Marco called it quits — but it wasn’t only the tension of traveling that ended the relationship — it was the ocean between them. “People are changing every moment,” says Luiz, and “when you’re not together in the same city or the same country, it’s difficult to evolve with the other person.”
Although “the door isn’t closed” when it comes to LDRs, Luiz isn’t raring to jump back into international dating waters anytime soon. “I have to think about me — my goals, desires, and identity,” he intimates.
Still, Luiz is grateful for the time he spent with Marco. “I learned to be more flexible, more patient, and more open to new ideas about connecting with another person. And I learned Italian,” he laughs — the language of love.
Learning your partner’s love languageFor AJ and Ronni, space has been a blessing in disguise. “There was no physical interaction to be had,” AJ says about their first three months together, “and so there’s more communication to be met, which … a lot of relationships lack because they’re so distracted with other things.”
While some might build relationships through corporeal connections, AJ and Ronni learned “how to communicate in each other’s languages” early on, Ronni says. “I think it allowed our relationship to get deeper on an emotional and intellectual level before ever meeting and getting to be with each other physically.”
“And that’s something that definitely lacks in a lot of [my] previous relationships, or with people in general,” adds AJ. “They just don’t talk.”
Today, it’s easier than ever to keep the romance alive in the digital ether. Platforms like Zoom, WhatsApp, Houseparty, and Snapchat make constant communication seemingly effortless. Their ubiquity is also vital for the current social climate. “I think this pandemic forced a lot of people to get creative in how they communicate with each other,” says AJ.
Physical distance in a global pandemicFor now, the distance between AJ and Ronni isn’t too big of a barrier. “We always laugh about lesbian miles,” says Ronni. Lesbian miles pokes fun at the prevalence of LDRs in the lesbian community. It falls into the well-worn bag of jokes where you’ll find UHauls and Lea DeLaria’s early standup routines. “It’s like, yeah, we’re long-distance, but … we’re practically right around the corner,” she giggles.
After nearly a year spent navigating digital relationships and physical distancing, lesbian miles feels like a concept worth co-opting. When the only thing separating romantic partners is an app, what do miles matter? Love is only one swipe away. That’s the kind of closeness we could all use in the time of COVID.
Check out the Facebook and Instagram pages dedicated to AJ and Ronni’s love story for updates on their journey.
The post How these LGBTQ couples are navigating long-distance relationships in a pandemic appeared first on Matador Network.
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