International Living Community

Hi Karl,

For individuals in the LBGTQ+ culture who are looking for social acceptance and legal protections, Ecuador is a viable option.

Study Ecuador’s political history, and you’ll find this forward-thinking county protects more rights than expected. In 1998, Ecuador became one of the first countries in the world to constitutionally ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Since 2008, same-s*x couples can engage in civil unions with all of the rights of marriage (except for adoption), including participating in things like the national health care system or other legal contracts with all the rights of a married couple.

Under the 2016 Gender Identity Law, transgender people can now change their legal gender solely based on self-determination, without undergoing surgery. Ecuador is also one of the few countries in the world to have banned conversion therapy. In 2018, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that same-s*x marriage is a human right protected by the American Convention on Human Rights, legalizing it in Ecuador.

Because LBGTQ rights are part of the constitution, there’s no worry about the supreme court taking away your rights. There are also much-needed treatments in Ecuador for HIV medicines and doctors in Ecuador who specialized in HIV/AIDS treatments.

It’s easy to find friends at local expat events, gay friendly bars, and through social media like Nomadicboys.com and the LGBTQ Expats Living in Ecuador Facebook page. But mostly, members of the gay community just make friends with expats and Ecuadorians, regardless of sexual preference.

Cuenca is a gay-friendly community and there are many couples here. Because it’s a cultural center, there’s more of an understanding of different lifestyles as writers, artists, and musicians bring a more open ideology.

As for other locations in Ecuador, Quito and Guayaquil are the two major cities in the country with the largest gay scenes due in part to the younger millennials living there. The city of Montañita, a village by the coast is famous for its bohemian vibe and very liberal attitude. It is a tourist town where if you are gay, you can feel extremely comfortable walking down the streets holding hands. In other Ecuadorian cities, it’s suggested that you do not show overt PDA, especially in smaller villages where there is less of an understanding of changing ideals on sexuality.

You can read an overview of how the countries on our beat rate for LGBTQ rights on the dedicated page on our website.

Hi Eny,

In the more popular expat areas of Belize general acceptance of the LBGTQ+ community is growing… thanks to the influence of expats from the US and Canada.

The country’s first Pride parade was held in 2017, with Pride week also being celebrated in subsequent years. You’ll find many networks on Facebook to connect to the gay community, and especially on Ambergris Caye, you will find a well-established and visible gay community.

That being said, I would not expect acceptance to equal what you have come to expect in the US or Canada at this point.

Megan Rodden, an American expat living in Placencia, summed things up very well in one of her blog posts:

“The experience in progressive and touristy hot-spots such as San Pedro is going to be light years apart from the experience in say, a rural, conservative Mennonite community in Toledo. Belizeans in general are a very live-and-let-live people but it was only in 2016 that they finally abolished their anti-sodomy law, recognizing discrimination based on sexual orientation unconstitutional. I think, in general, there’s mostly apathy regarding LGBTQ issues with a small population on either side of the spectrum either condemning or crusading for equality.”

So, there has been movement in the right direction, and in most expat areas you should be fine. But there is still work to be done.

Hi Wade,

Learning the language of the country you choose to live in is always a good idea and will help greatly with everyday living. Even just knowing enough to understand when the shopkeeper is asking if you would like a bag makes life smoother.

That’s not to say you need perfect Portuguese in order to live here. Many Portuguese do speak English, especially in the Algarve, Lisbon and Porto. And for those that don’t, broken Portuguese combined with their broken English will often be enough to get by.

It’s a good idea to pick up some basics of the language before you move, and you can always study more in depth once you arrive. A word of warning if using apps like Duolingo: often the Portuguese these apps teach is Brazilian rather than European. That version of the language will be understood, but it’s not the correct version for Portugal.

It is almost universally agreed that the “purest” Portuguese is spoken in Coimbra, a riverfront city in the center of the country.

Coimbra is Portugal’s former medieval capital and home to the University of Coimbra, the largest university in Portugal and one of the oldest universities in continuous operation in the world. Its Faculdade de Letras offers summer, annual, and intensive courses (in September and February) in the Portuguese language.

The Portuguese government also offers free language classes for immigrants. These are held at local high schools that run in conjunction with the school year.

There is a detailed section on learning Portuguese in our Escape to Portugal country guide (recently updated by me).