Confession time: I have a lot of mixed feelings about running this site. I launched it in a different timeline, when I looked forward to increased LGBTQ+ rights and opportunities — not to mention economic stability — for many of my queer friends in the U.S. I wanted them to join my partner and I overseas, taking up space on those tropical islands and nomad cruises that all of the straights get to enjoy.

I still, in some ways, imagine that — but circumstances have changed.

I feel a sense of hesitancy around encouraging some queer Americans to travel abroad, when I know that many others can’t, or don’t feel safe doing so at this moment in time. I also feel conflicted about the impact that even low- to middle-income knowledge workers can have on local communities, gentrifying whole cities and pricing locals out of stable accommodation.

I sometimes question the whole project, because it feels hard to square being LGBTQ+ and being a digital nomad at all. The values that I picked up from my time living in Portland, Oregon — mutual aid, intentional living, place-making — feel at odds with the realities of geoarbitrage and passport privilege. Frankly, some of the digital nomad talking points around “startup cities” and “network states” feel uncomfortably libertarian and alt-right.

But at the same time, several things can be true at once: I want queer Americans to have the same privileges as straight white cryptobros, to be able to pick up and move abroad whenever they want to. I also want be mindful of our impact on digital nomad destinations, to avoid turning cities like Cape Town, Chiang Mai, and Medellín into hotbeds of overtourism and gentrification.

A few months ago, while visiting Cape Town, I saw this tension up close. My partner and I were there for Nomad Week, a DN conference at which we pitched the idea for Remote Queer and delivered a presentation on making work-and-travel programs more inclusive for LGBTQ+ people. It felt like a small but meaningful way to contribute to queer visibility in a setting that can often be mainstream and heteronormative.

One night, we met up with an online acquaintance who had grown up in Cape Town, and had a fairly negative impression of the conference. They pointed out that many locals didn’t take kindly to Nomad Week at all. They saw the influx of digital nomads as being responsible for rising rents and living costs.

It would have been easy to draw a line between us vs. them, but the reality was more nuanced. Our friend was sympathetic to queer Americans wanting to leave the U.S., and offered to help anyone we knew considering Cape Town as a escape. And it wasn’t remote workers they objected to specifically, so much as the types of accommodations — Airbnbs and coliving spaces — that were catering to them.

I don’t think it’s as simple as saying that queer people shouldn’t move abroad, or that being a DN is incompatible with queerness. What’s important, I think, is to work with local communities and find mutually-beneficial solutions, something that queer people are uniquely suited to doing.

And yes, to think of ourselves as immigrants rather than expats: to ask permission to be in a particular place and to, both literally and metaphorically, pay the rent. (In Australia, we have an organization called Pay the Rent that does just that, redistributing resources from settlers to First Nations’ people.)

Even so, I question whether a website like this can be sufficiently broad enough to help anyone. Many strategies for moving abroad depend on certain privileges, like having a partner, having a well-paying job, or being in good health. I know what worked for me, and I want to help other people follow the same path.

But when I see discussions on social media about traveling abroad with an X gender marker, or accessing HRT overseas, I feel out of my depth. I don’t know which countries will cover HRT as part of their healthcare program, or make it easy for residents to change the gender on their ID or birth certificate.

I want this project to be inclusive of trans people, but I know that my perspective has its limits. (If you are trans, I recommend checking out Trans World Express, a Wiki that covers some of the same topics I do, but is written by trans people.)

It would be easier for me to pass as straight, join existing nomad communities, and put my reservations aside.

Ultimately, though, I’m a digital nomad because I’m queer — not in spite of it. My ability to travel freely depends on my having partners in specific locations, and I often return to those places because I want to spend time with those partners — romantic, queerplatonic, or otherwise.

If I were straight, I might be a more traditional expat, committing myself to one location and a single career path. But my partner’s home city has never truly felt like home to me. And although I have work rights in Australia, a traditional in-person job would trap me here.

Remote work is non-negotiable for me, because it’s what allows me to spend time with other friends and family members — to be able to plug right back in to my previous life halfway across the world for entire months at a time. It’s what allows me to invite my best friend on tropical workations and backpacking trips. And it’s what allows my partner to have some alone time, or spend time with other loved ones, while I’m away.

I know I’m not the only queer person who lives like this — or straight person, for that matter. I’ve met people of all orientations who describe themselves as comet partners, seasonal partners, or relationship anarchists. Many of them may not think of themselves as digital nomads, because they’ve patched together their travel patterns out of necessity, not as a lifestyle choice.

The unique dynamics of each situation can make it hard to find commonalities and maintain strong connections across borders. But I hope that, by writing about the intersections between queerness and digital nomadism, more of us can find each other and share the tools and support we need.

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