1. Spencer Ruelos
Dr. K. Berry
Understandingthe Complexities of Transnational Queer Tourism:
An Intersectional Feminist and Post-Colonial Analysis
Over the past decade, many of those who supportand identity with the mainstream LGBT movement have
heralded and celebrated the inclusion of LGBT people in the mainstream consumer market and popular culture.
LGBT people (especially the G‘s) can be found in commercialsfor alcohol, television shows, auto rentals, tourist
cruises, and vacation getaways. What this celebratory and ―inclusive‖ narrative fails to incorporate are the
complexities, contradictions, and inequalities inherent in many acts of LGBT inclusion, especially within the
purview of global queer tourism. In order to tend to these complexities as presented in the literature on
transnational queer tourism, I will explore the racialized, gendered, classed, and sexualized effects of gay tourism on
specific cultures and transnational spaces in order to illustrate how global queer reproduces processes of
colonization and systems of inequalities while reifying the neocolonial categories of race, class, gender, nation, and
sexuality. To begin our discussion of the complexities of global queer tourism, this paper will begin by historicizing
the emergence of the gay and lesbian niche market and examining how corporations and transnational gay travel
guides position specific queer-identified person as actors and objects in this global consumer market.The second
section of this essay will then shift to examining the complexities in the crafting of specific tourist destinations or
sexscapes as ‗gay-friendly.‘ In the third and final section of this literature review, we will explore the complexities
and sociocultural effects of transnational queer tourism in Thailand, Mexico, and the Czech Republic. Throughout
the discussion of transnational queer tourism, I stress the importance of an intersectional feminist analysis and a
post-colonial theoretical lens, ultimately arguing that these two specific frameworks allow us to understand the
complexities that global queer tourism brings forward.
Positioning the Queer Consumer
The shift in marketing strategies that target queers as primary consumers is a relatively recent phenomenon.
It is generally agreed upon that gay and lesbian marketing segment was particularly galvanized in the 80s and 90s
mostly by AIDS epidemic and the subsequent desire of gays and lesbians to become more visible in the mainstream
(Puar 2002a:105; Pritchard et al. 1998:274). This desire for visibility, however, has contributed to the colonization
of the new gay and lesbian niche market by hetero-patriarchal capitalism. According to Alexander, ―heterosexual
capital‘s gesture of rolling out the ‗welcome mat‘ [to gay and lesbian consumers] has less to do with hospitality than
with the creation of a new consumer and a new market… both of which must be [colonized]‖ (Alexander 2005:71).
In the mid 1990s, companies began hiring gays and lesbians in order to help target the interests of this new queer
consumer, thereby attempting to acquire the queer dollar and its ‗untold millions‘ (Alexander 2005:73).These desires
of neo-imperial capitalistic expansion and extraction of wealth illustrate the connection between the emergence of
the global queer tourist market and reproduction of colonial discourses and processes.
Despite this seemingly more queer-inclusive shift to marketing strategies, one very specific and idealized
queer body—which is simultaneously racialized, nationalized, gendered, and classed—is positioned as the primary

2. Ruelos 2
queer consumer. Utilizing an intersectional feminist analysis reveals some of the power dynamics inherent in this
representation and positioning of the queer consumer. Alexander provides a useful foundation for our discussion:
―[T]he quintessential homosexual consumer within the contemporary racialized, gendered political economy of the
United States is invented and imagined as male and white‖ (Alexander 2005:72). Building upon Alexander‘s
discussion, Rushbrook calls attention to the politics of difference and the production of racializedOtherness.
―When the normal is white straightness, the spatialization of difference or deviation in mutually exclusive,
oppositional zones in a hierarchy of places reinforces the production of queerness as white‖ (Rushbrook 2002:185).
One could also argue that this same production of difference creates a masculinized homosexual subjectivity as the
ideal consumer, one that Alexander describes as akin to the real Marlboro man (Alexander 2005:72). Alexander and
Pritchard, Morgan and Sedgely very briefly mention the positioning of this imagined and idealized gay consumer as
able-bodied. Thus the invention of the queer (or, more appropriately, gay) consumer idealizes a gendered,
masculinized, racialized, and able capitalist body.
Another intersection in the construction of the gay consumer concerns both the subject‘s education and
socio-economic class. The development of the new gay and lesbian niche market was rooted in the assumption that
gays and lesbians were on average more educated than their heterosexual counterparts, producing an above-average
annual household income (Alexander 2005:72; Puar 2002a:109, 2002b:937; Pritchard et al. 1998:275). However,
Puar and Pritchard Morgan, and Sedgelychallenge the homogenous assertions of these statistics by arguing that
because of gender discrimination in the work place,lesbian couples in fact earn on average lower incomes than those
of gay male couples (Pritchard et al. 1998:275) and possibly even less than heterosexual couples (Puar 2002a:110,
2002b:938). Companies within the gay and lesbian travel industry also position queer couples (and especially gay
couples) as hyper-consumers, taking this increased dual income and the absence of children as fact for all queer
consumers (Puar 2002b:937). Because of these frightful assumptions, however, many queer bodies—i.e. lesbians,
queers of color, working class and poor queers, queer with disabilities, and (as we will soon talk about) Third World
queers and trans-identified queers—are rendered invisible through this normalization of the queer tourist as a white,
middle-class, well-educated gay man.
Exploring the level of analysis that both Alexander and Puar provide allows us to understand how the gay
travel guides and websitesreproduce neocolonial narratives and perpetuate this idealized queer consumer. In her
analysis of the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA) and Spartacus gay travel guides,
Alexander presents several ways in which these media replicate colonial tendencies:
o the reproduction of boundaries of colonial geography;
o the positioning of the writer, imagined reader, and targeted tourist as white and Western;
o the nativist discourse which construct the ‗character‘ of Third Word people, for example as ‗friendly‘,
‗exotic‘, and ‗primitive;‘

3. Ruelos 3
o andthe paradisiacal framework of the geography which reifies the construction of the exotified Third
World Other.
Drawing upon Gita Patel‘s notion of the nativization of fetishes, Alexander discusses that this Third World queer
body only exists within the colonial narrative and in ―the authentic local geography‖ in order to fit into the
―colonialist fantasy‖ (Alexander 2005: 85). Because of this, autochthonous and Third World queer persons are not
positioned as travelers, but rather only as sexual and commoditized queer bodies to be experienced and consumed
by the idealized Euro-American gay tourist. While acknowledging the consumption and commoditization of the
fetishized and Third World/native queer body, Puar in contrastfocuses her analytical framework around the images
of the positioned European queer nationals. She ultimately argues that by juxtaposing white, middle-class gay men
against rainbow colors and national monuments and flags, gay travel industries invent and imagine gay (and lesbian)
inclusion and authenticity in the nation state (Puar 2002a: 113). This discursive construction of European queer
nationals typifies Alexander‘s claim that the writer and reader are positioned white, Western gay men. Puar also
presents a list of countries which guides have positioned as ―homophobic sites‖, all of which happen to be ―non-
Western‖ countries (e.g. Peru, Colombia, Afghanistan, and Bavaria). In doing so, the guides situate the West with
colonial assumptions of progress and liberation, whereas these Third World countries embody intolerant and
uncivilized ideologies. Both Alexander and Puar provide key analytical frameworks to understanding how gay travel
guides create both an imagined gay tourist and an imagined, nativized queer Other, thereby illustrating several ways
in which global queer tourism employs neocolonial discourses.
Spatial Construction of a Transnational Queer Sexscape
In addition to the positioning of an ideal queer consumer, understanding the discursive construction of a
queer travel destination also sheds light in the neocolonial processes of global queer tourism. Several authors
explore how the label ‗gay-friendly‘ is used to craft that which Murray calls queer tourist sexscape, a term used to
describe a designated queer space whichhe adapts from Arjun Appadurai‘s terminology regarding transnationalism
and global cultural flows (Murray 2007: 58). Through an examination of the literature, three dominant
characteristics emerge which construct a transnational queer tourist sexscape: the existence of a well-known gay
population, the creation of queer festivals and events, and the positive status of LGBT rights. However, retaining
our post-colonial and intersectional feminist analytical frameworks complicate the construction of ‗gay-friendly‘
queer sexscapes by bringing forward a discussion of neocolonial redeployments and systems of inequalities.
Pritchard, Morgan, and Sedgely (1998) describe the first dominant characteristic of ‗gay-friendly‘ sexscapes
as gay infrastructure, i.e. the existence of a core gay population. In their analysis, they discuss how the European
and American cities—specifically Amsterdam, Manchester, and San Francisco (more on San Francisco, see also
Boyd 2008)—have become prime sitesfor gay tourism because of their large, established concentrations of gay
residents. However, looking back at Alexander‘s analysis extends this claim to Third World locales as well; for
example, the colonialist and nativist discourses of travel guides conceptualize Burundi as traditionally bisexual

4. Ruelos 4
(Alexander 2005: 84-5).Closely tethered to this is the construction of a ―tradition of tolerance,‖ where travel
companies position both specific Western countries (e.g. the Netherlands and France) and non-Western locales (e.g.
Indonesia) as free of homophobia (Pritchard et al. 1998: 278, Puar 2002a: 113, Alexander 2005: 83). Thus, the
presentation of an established gay population and the assumed lack of homophobia provide a relatively convincing
construction of a ‗gay-friendly‘ tourist destination.
Equally important to note is how a sense of homotemporality—or queer time—actively shapes the
embodiment of a queer tourist sexscape. Pritchard, Morgan and Sedgely (1998) stress the crucial role that events
like gay pride parades, the Gay Games, and Mardi Gras festivals have played on promoting global gay-friendly
tourist destinations. In his own research on gay and lesbian tourism, Markwell illustrates how Sydney‘s Mardi Gras
has created a sense of gay place and time, while simultaneously positioning Sydney as an international gay and
lesbian city. Surveying the literature himself, Markwell argues that events like Mardi Gras contribute to the
imagined postmodern city as a site for pleasure, fun, and consumption (Markwell 2002: 87). Whereas Pritchard,
Morgan, and Sedgely emphasize the importance of gay places, Markwell examines the implications of
homotemporality (what he terms ―gay times‖) on the construction of transnational queer tourist sexscapes. Mardi
Gras provides an example of this homotemporality, when one month out of the year has an increased focus on gay
and lesbian issues (Markwell 2002: 89). Markwell argues that while this does have positive implications for the
queer community, there is a risk that gay and lesbian socio-political issues are ignored outside of the Mardi Gras gay
time (―the danger of ‗temporal containment‘‖ [Markwell 2002: 89]). However, because of the increased success of
its Mardi Gras festival, Sydney has become known as an international gay and lesbian city, where cosmopolitan
queer consumers are called forth in order to participate in queer celebratory events during the month of February.
In doing so, Sydney‘s Mardi Gras as an event provides a critical discussion of place and time in the spatial
construction of a queer tourist sexscape.
While both the existence of a gay population and creation of gay events are crucial to the construction of a
transnational queer tourist sexscape, Boyd (2008) argues that the status of LGBT/queer rights plays the most
important role in the construction of a ‗gay-friendly‘ tourist destination. Specifically, he argues that the US-based
gay marriage movement has contributed to the growth of the global gay tourist economy, while simultaneously
disciplining consumers by producing homonormativity—that is, a normalized set of ideologies and behaviors that
asserts citizenship rights for gays and lesbians via neoliberal politics and conspicuous consumption. The creation of
the gay and lesbian niche market, as I have touched upon, contextualizes queer consumption as a vehicle for both
visibility and civil rights, where neocolonial discourses also equate spending with citizenship rights. Because of this,
same-sex marriage has become a tourist attraction in which same-sex couples can participate and get married,
thereby demonstrating their citizenship rights through both the act of getting married and the participation in
consumer culture. Gay marriage and gay tourism together thus create ―a new kind of queer consumer [who is
taught to be a good citizen through the participation] of civic life via the social rituals of marriage and the

5. Ruelos 5
commercial rituals of conspicuous consumption‖ (Boyd 2008: 228). However, Boyd does point out that with the
spread of the gay marriage movement internationally, a new global queer citizen/consumer assumes the ―modern
queer sexuality‖ which emphasizes neocolonial messages about Western sexual liberation and freedom through
citizenship, civil rights, and ‗out‘ visibility.Hence, the placement of LGBT rights in the forefront of the construction
of a queer sexscape is rendered problematic through a post-colonial theoretical lens.
Making use ofour post-colonial and intersectional feminist analytical frameworks also complicates the
production of transnational ―gay-friendly‖ tourist sexscapes as a whole. Firstly, several authors discuss how the
promotion of a tourist destination with an established and popularized queer community and events can lead to a
commoditization of queer identities by (cis-gendered) heterosexual travelers and ultimately a de-gaying of queer
sexscapes (Pritchard et al. 1998: 279, Rushbrook 2002: 191). For example, queer commodities can become
commodities for heterosexual spectators at gay pride events and drag shows. The influx of heterosexual tourists to
Manchester hasalso been known to cause local queer residents to feel unsafe and not welcome within their own gay
space. Targeted as a sexually Otherized body, some local and non-local queers can become neocolonial spectacles
for white, neocolonizing heterosexuals. Secondly, the economic incentive in positioning of a queer sexscape allow
(often) heterosexual capitalists, nationals, and organizations access to an increasingly developing consumer market,
illustrative of the insatiable neoimperial capitalist desire to generate revenue. Finally, the construction of a queer
sexscape through both gay events and LGBT rights lead to the romanticization of geographies, assuming that all
queer spaces are without inequalities. As many of the authors I examined point out, this claiming of a queer
sexscape forefronts sexuality and sexual identity, which simultaneously erases and renders other categories of
difference—like race, class, gender, nation, ability, and sexual identities different from gay, lesbian or straight—
invisible (Rushbrook 2002: 184, Puar 2002a: 112, Puar 2002b: 936, Pritchard et al. 1998: 274). As a result, the
normalization of the sexual and idealized queer consumer reproduces systems of inequalities based on categorical
differences and the neocolonial politics of representation. Overall, the label ―gay-friendly‖ may not be as all-
inclusive as it may seem; the crafting of a transnational queer sexscape as a tourist destination continues to draw
upon neocolonial tendencies that perpetuate systems of equality.
Exploring Queer Tourism through Case Studies
In this final section of the paper, we will explore the ways in global queer tourism have affected the specific
global locales of Thailand,Mexico, and the Czech Republic with the reproduction of colonial discourses and systems
of inequality. By building upon the previously discussed theoretical frameworks that we have explored, we will
understand how neocolonial processes of global queer tourism have specifically shaped the experience of tourists
and local peoples within each of specific locations.
Trans Medical Tourism in Thailand
As I briefly mentioned earlier, trans tourism has almost always been absent in the travel guides and literature
on global queer tourism. Despite its absence, however, it seems that medical tourism sought after by trans-

6. Ruelos 6
identified individuals is still mediated through neocolonial processes, the exotification of Third World cultures, and
global neoliberal politics. Aizura, one of the lone authors who has examined trans medical tourism, illustrates this in
his research on gender reassignment surgical(GRS) tourism in Thailand.
In the first section of his article, Aizura explains how Thailand in part functions as a transnational trans
sexscape.―Medical travel to Thailand has become a large industry since 2000, facilitated by governments eager to find
a new source of international revenue in the wake of the 1997 Asian economic crisis…‖ (Aizura 2010: 5).
Consequently,Thai surgeons have crafted a trans ―sexscape‖ in a sense through the position of Thailand as the
―‘Mecca‘ of transsexual body modification‖ (Aizura 2010: 2).Because of this increase in foreign travelers to Thailand
for GRS, the once domestic market for reassignment surgery has shifted directly because of the globalization of the
economy to a transnational luxury service. As we have seen before, the existence of a Thai gender variant also helps
position Thailand as a trans sexscape. Several Thai trans clinics evenmarket themselves within these tourism
discourses by providing four-star hotel accommodation and classes, excursions and activities during convalescence.
Through these somewhat familiar processes we can begin see how Thailand is positioned as a trans sexscape.
After elaborating on the construction of Thailand as a medical tourist travel destination, Aizura describes
the experience of two trans women to illustrate the complexities of cultural appropriation and the incorporation of
―Thainess‖ into these women‘s experience. During Melanie‘s trip to Thailand to meet with her surgeon about
completing her GRS surgery in 2007, she bought a painting of a Thai goddess who she described as ―Kinnaree…it‘s
the representation of a goddess of earth. Feminine grace, beauty‖ (Aizura 2010: 9).Unknown to her, Melanie had
actually confused the goddess Kinnaree with the goddess Mae Phra Thoranee. After eventually returning to
America, Melanie got a tattoo of Kinnaree on her shoulder and would begin describing this goddess with
characteristics of Mae Phra Thoranee. According to Aizura post-colonial theorists have critiqued these forms of
cultural appropriation of ―exotic‖ and ―primitive‖ tattooing, which is seen as an ethnicized commoditization of the
cultural Other (Aizura 2010: 10). A similar discussion of appropriation can be seen with Elizabeth, an Australian
trans woman who set ablaze her removed testicles and presented them as an offering in the fishpond of a
Theravada Buddhist temple. While both women could be seen as appropriators who participate in practices which
construct Thailand as an exotic and ethnicized Third World country, Aizura argues these practices cannot be strictly
seen as neocolonial and orientalist appropriations:
They need to be read as an effect of Melanie and Elizabeth gaining the space to perform their own feminine
genders in relative, and temporary, freedom [which] enables both individuals to imagine rituals marking the
event of gender reassignment, incorporating something of the geocultural location in which they feel so
respected and recognized. (Aizura 2010: 16)
Thus this supplementing of femininity through tattooing and the incorporation of Buddhist beliefs in a self-
designed ritual complicate the neocolonial context of such practices. While these practices are disciplinary in the

7. Ruelos 7
creation of an orientalist and exotified Other, they are emancipatory in that they allow these women to carve out
spaces where they can freely negotiate their own gender identities.
Mexican Sexual Colonization and Liberation
Continuing the this discussion of disciplinary and emancipatory effects of global gay tourism, Cantú argues
that in order to understand the complexities of American gay tourism in Mexico one must understand the processes
of sexual colonization and liberation at work. To foreground this complexity, Cantú discusses the historical and
economic relationship between the US and Mexico. The economic ties between Mexico and the US have been
particularly developed through Mexico‘s membership in the WTO, GATT, and NAFTA, stimulating both social
and cultural ties between the two countries (Cantú 2002: 143). One of these ties has created a movement of peoples
across the borders both from the north to the south and both legally and illegally; unfortunately, however, crossing
the border has proven to be more difficult for Mexicans who might be branded as homosexuals. It is because of
this that the globalization of economy in Mexico through its relationships with the US has lead to the migrations of
Mexican queer men and women to urban areas for better economic alternatives.With the development of tourism
industry in the 1960s, the migrations of both Mexican queers and American tourists to Mexican urban centers have
lead to the development and commodification of Mexican gay culture through transnational gay tourism (Cantú
2002: 144). Consequently, according to Cantú, this has sparked the new emerging Western gay identity for both
men and women and the overshadowing of the previous ambiente identity.
Since this development of transnational gay tourism, new guidebooks on Mexican gay travel have emerged
which depict the workings of sexual conquest through the redeployment of colonial process of sexual exotification.
These guides, following the same methods that the previous guides we have discussed have, focus on sexuality and
target an American male audience. Firstly, in the covers of the guides that Cantú provides all the Mexican men are
at least shirtless, symbolizing their sexual readiness and availability. Secondly, the representations of Mexico in these
guidebooks are twofold: one depiction of Mexico as ―just like home‖ and a second as an exotic, Third World
country which tempts the colonialists desire to be explored and conquered.
Yet for queer tourism there also exists a ―border‖ tension between the lure of an exotic paradise and the
dangers of homophobia in foreign lands. Here Mexico seems to represent a homosexual paradise free of the
pressures of a modern ‗gay life style,‘ where sexuality exists in its ‗raw‘ form yet where the dangers of an
uncivilized heterosexual authority also threaten. (Cantú 2002: 148).
It is easy to see how these guides embody the discourses of sexual conquest and neocolonial representations of
Third World locations and peoples by crafting a sexualand racialized Other as a commodity for American gay
tourists.
While it‘s clear to see that the guides present a problematic framework and representation, transnational gay
tourism has complex implications on the lives of Mexican gay men and women which can be seen as both
disciplinary and liberatory. As Cantú illustrates the emergence of the gay and lesbian tourist market in Europe

8. Ruelos 8
created the foundations for the development of the gay and lesbian movement in Mexico (Cantú 2002: 155).
Tourism has also sparked the migration of same-sex sexual couples to the States, which itself can be seen as
liberatory and disciplinary. In many instances, same-sex sexual couples decide to traverse the US-Mexico border in
order to create better opportunities for themselves and their families. However, often when same-sex sexual
couples from Mexico do arrive in the US they are faced with homophobia and racism, despite the claim that the
―modern‖ US is more liberal than developing countries like Mexico (Cantú 2002: 155, 157). Another beneficial
factor that global gay tourism has brought to Mexico have been tools for combating HIV/AIDS, ultimately
providing condoms, lubricants, medications, and literature to promote HIV/AIDS activism. One of the more or
less shocking influences on Mexican gay men‘s lives has been the embodiment of colonialist desires for conquest in
elite Mexican men. For example, upper-class Mexican man named Franco describes his tourism in Cuba: ―‗the men
in Cuba are fantastic. I always take some extra things like cologne and clothes. Cuban men will fuck you for a Nike
baseball cap‘‖ (Cantú 2002: 156). Through this description, we see how Franco embodies a (neo)colonizer‘s
subjectivity by seeking sexual conquest in the exotified Cuba and by creating a colonial knowledge about the
sexuality of Cuban men. These are some of the diverse impacts on Mexican gay men and women‘s lives that situate
global gay tourism in Mexico within a disciplinary, yet concurrently liberatory framework.
European Otherness: Colonial Knowledge Production of Czech ‘Boys’ in Prague
One final case study that provides some distinctive insights into the effects of transnational queer tourism
concerns the relationship between Czech bodies in Prague and the neocolonial desires of Austrian gay male tourists.
In his essay, Bunzl follows Pratt‘s analytical framework by arguing that Prague‘s gay scene can be envisioned as a
―contact zone:‖ a neocolonial location which reifies a Western/Eastern European dichotomy and where the relation
between Czech ‗boys‘ and Austrian ‗men‘ is predicated on sexual, racial/ethnic, geocultural,and socioeconomic
systems of inequalities (Bunzl 2000: 71). At this neocolonial contact zone, Austrian (Western) gay male tourists live
out their neocolonial fantasies to have sexual encounters with Czech (Eastern) gay male bodies. It is important to
note that transnational tourism perpetuates these racial/ethnic/geographic categories of difference between Eastern
and Western Europe despite the ―Eastern transition‖ into a new Europe through the membership of the European
Union. Because of these imagined categories of difference, Austrian gay tourists constantly position Prague‘s gay
scene as a site for Eastern (same-sex) sexual Otherness.
By focusing his ethnographic work on the experience of Austrian gay male tourists, Bunzl illustrates the
ways in which transnational gay tourism of Austrian men operates under the neocolonial production of knowledge
about Czech same-sex sexual culture and sexuality (Bunzl 2000: 82). In parallel to the sense of danger that Cantú
describes in Mexico, Bunzl portrays many Austrian men‘s initial experience as fearful of the perils of traveling to an
unknown environment (illustrative of Prague as a neocolonial contact zone). In this sense, Prague can be seen as a
―heart of darkness,‖ which must be explored by the Western gay male tourist in order to demystify and familiarize
oneself with the Eastern sexual Other. This neocolonial desire for knowledge production justifies the

9. Ruelos 9
subjectification (and consequently objectification) of Czech same-sex sexuality. Bunzl also comments of the effects
of socioeconomic class and age in the positioning of Czech same-sex sexuality. He depicts how Austrians produce
knowledge of about Czech sexuality through the constant description of Czech gay men as ‗boys.‘ While bringing
to the forefront a racialized age as a neocolonial category of difference, Austrian positioning of Czech boys
simultaneously superimposes the dependency of Eastern bodies on class-privileged Western tourists. This also
continues to justify the desire of Austrian men to travel and explore Czech sexual Otherness.
A third and final example of the neocolonial production of knowledge of Czech same-sex sexuality focuses
on the colonial trope of sexual availability through the stressing of a distinct Czech same-sex sexual identity. Similar
to the assumptions of sexual identity that we have seen in various gay travel guides, Austrians position Czech ‗boys‘
as in a constant state of sexual readiness. One dominant paradigm of this sexual readiness characterizes all Czech
‗boys‘ as bisexual or pansexual. One informant describes sexuality in Prague:
[T]hings are totally different. They are just so openly bisexual. Just about all the boys I‘ve had sex with there
had girlfriends, but they were into having sex with men as well. […] I really think they just like to have sex—
boys, men, women—it just doesn‘t matter. They‘re just not afraid of their sexuality, and so I‘ve always gotten
what I‘ve wanted. (Bunzl 2000: 86–7)
Another positioning of sexual availability and readiness, as Bunzl also points out, concerns Austrian gay male tourist
discursively creating a sense of Czech ‗boys‘ desirability to service men. ―‘I had never seen anything like that at
home. He didn‘t have his own agenda, but was totally attentive to me. We couldn‘t really communicate, of course,
but somehow he could feel what it was I wanted. And he just did that‘‖ (Bunzl 2000: 85). In sum, very similar to
positioning a commoditified Third World sexual Otherness (as we have seen multiple times above), this production
of knowledge of Czech ‗boys‘ sexuality through the description of sexual availability creates an embodied Eastern
sexual Otherness constructed through neocolonial tropes and desires which serve the purpose of reproducing the
categories of racial, sexual, class, and national difference.
Conclusion
After reviewing much of the literature on transnational queer tourism can we the importance of
understanding the complexities that this relatively recent form of tourism provides. Some of these complexities are
embodied in the rendering invisible of certain categories of difference which normalize the primary queer consumer
as a white, middle-class, Western, cis-gendered gay male. Some can also be seen in the complex social framework
which allows us to see queer tourism as both emancipatory and disciplinary. Others require to look at the
reproduction of colonial processes of exotification in specific ‗gay-friendly‘ queer sexscapes such as Thailand,
Mexico, and the Czech Republic. As we have seen through this examination of global queer tourism, both an
intersectional feminist analysis and a post-colonial studies framework allow us to delve into many of these
complexities which are often overshadowed and ignored. Thus through attempting to explore some of the
complexities of transnational queer tourism through these analytical and theoretical lenses can we begin see the

10. Ruelos 10
ways in which global queer tourism reproduce both neocolonial power relations and systems of inequality through
the categories of race, class, gender, nation, and sexuality.

11. Ruelos 11
Works Cited
Aizura, Aren. 2010. ―Feminine Transformations: Gender Reassignment Surgical Tourism in Thailand.‖ Medical
Anthropology 29, no. 4 (2010): 1–20. Philadelphia, PA: RoutledgePublications.
Alexander, M. Jacqui. 2005. ―Imperial Desires/Sexual utopias: White Gay Capital and Transnational Tourism.‖
Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory, and the Sacred. Durham, NC: Duke
University Press.
Boyd, Nan Alamilla. 2008. ―Sex and Tourism: The Economic Implications of the Gay Marriage Movement.‖
Radical History Review, 100 (Winter 2008):222–235. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Bunzi, Matti. 2000. ―The Prague Experience: Gay Male Sex Tourism and the Neocolonial Invention of an
Embodied Border.‖ 2000. Altering States: Ethnographies of Transition in Eastern Europe. 70–95.Ed. D. Berdahl
et al. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press.
Cantu, Lionel. 2002. "De Ambiente : Queer Tourism and the Shifting Boundaries of Mexican Male Sexualities."
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 8, no. 1 (2002): 139-166. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Markwell, Kevin. 2002. "Mardi Gras Tourism and the Construction of Sydney as an International Gay and Lesbian
City." GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies8, no. 1 (2002): 81-99. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Murray, David. 2007. ―The Civilized Homosexual: Travel Talk and the Project of Gay Identity.‖Sexualities 10, no.
1 (2007): Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Pritchard, Annette, et al. 1998. ―Reaching Out to the Gay Tourist: Opportunities and Threats in an Emerging
Market Segment.‖ Tourism Management 19, no. 3 (1998): 273–282.Dorset, UK: Elsevier Science, Ltd.
Puar, Jasbir K. 2002a. "Circuits of Queer Mobility: Tourism, Travel, and Globalization." GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian
and Gay Studies 8, no. 1 (2002): 101-137. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
---. 2002b. ―A Transnational Feminist Critique of Queer Tourism‖. Antipode 34: 935–946.Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell
Publishing.
Rushbrook, Dereka. 2002. "Cities, Queer Space, and the Cosmopolitan Tourist." GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay
Studies 8, no. 1 (2002): 183-206. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.