Lisbon is known as a queer-friendly city and has a large LGBTQ+ community. Especially the central neighbourhoods of Principe Real and Bairro Alto are known as gay-friendly areas. The city has multiple queer bars, clubs, and events, and every year in June there is a major pride event, Arraial Lisboa Pride.
However, ILGA Portugal shows in 2022 that discrimination against queer people still occurs regularly in the city. Even though Lisbon has the image of an accepting city, 39% of the reports of incidents of discrimination and hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people in Portugal come from Lisbon.
Despite the two-sided image of the city and the variety of experiences of queer people. Cristián’s story shows that Lisbon could eminently be a safe space for people of the LGBTQ+ community. Cristián has been travelling a lot in his life, within Chile, in the United States and Europe, and has therefore a lot of comparison material. From all the places he has been, Lisbon is the queer city for him.
Even though Cristián values the time he spends with his close friends the most, once in a while, he likes to go to a queer place or queer event in Lisbon. He noticed that the queer bars and parties are quite diverse here: “Those spaces are mixed, not exclusively queer. You can find everyone. Straight people, and all the letters of the LGBTQ+ community.”
During the time he has been living in Lisbon, he went on some trips to other cities in Europe. None of those cities changed his mind about his plan to stay in Lisbon. Nowhere, he felt as safe and free as in Lisbon. He says: “I’m happy with all the atmosphere that Lisbon has. I have my friends here, I like my work, I like my neighbourhood, I feel full of love and alive.”
And that has not always been the case for Cristián.
Growing up in a conservative environment
Cristián was born in the conservative south of Chile, in the city ‘Temuco’. He describes Chile as a difficult country mentioning the effects of colonisation, ages of conflict and the struggle for the indigenous population in the South of the country, the Mapuche. The region where Cristián spent most of his youth was very polarised. “Where I grew up, grey didn’t exist: you were on the extreme right or you were called a communist. I think that I am avoiding these kinds of extremes now as a consequence of my childhood”, he says. “I am in Portugal now, a country that has been neutral for ages.”
He knew from a young age that he was not straight, but in the environment, he grew up in, that was not an option. He even states that coming out as a gay man could mean death: “It is quite dangerous in that sense. In my childhood, I had to hide it, it was violent. It was a risk to have any perspective or opinion different from the standard.” That is one of the reasons he realised from an early age that this was not his home. His plan for the future was to travel and explore to find a place where he could be himself.
And so he did.
When Cristián finished high school, he decided to move to Santiago, the capital of Chile, where he went to university and studied architecture. It was a relief to move to the big city: “I noticed the huge difference with the place I grew up from the first moment I walked around in Santiago. A world opened up for me.”
From that moment, Cristián felt free enough to be openly gay.
From Santiago to Puerto Varas
During university, he noticed that things were changing in the city, but also in the overall society. “People started to become more open to alternatives than the classic man-women standards, and the country developed in the field of women’s rights. Diversity grew and people became less judgemental regarding for example the feminine side of men.” Cristián assumes that this was an effect of the female president at the time: Michelle Bachelet. She spread the message and propagated diversity. “No one in society could have missed her message”, says Cristián. This was also the time of a lot of protests in the country, occasions where a lot of young people, with new and global visions, came together. These movements were noticeable in the environment of the university. During his two years in Santiago, Cristián felt increasingly free to develop himself the way he wanted.
However, after finishing university, Santiago didn’t have anything new or interesting to provide. The job offers in the city were limited and there were no opportunities to grow. Cristián wanted to leave Chile and explore more of the world, but he didn’t have the resources to do that, yet. Many of his friends went back to their home town, Puerto Varas, 300km South of Temuco. There were many opportunities as an architect. Cristián moved there with his friends and stayed for 1,5 years. One of the friends he went to Puerto Varas with, is also gay, and they found support from each other. This friend is now with him in Lisbon.
Critián describes living in Puerto Varas as a good experience. The job opportunities were great, the city was beautiful, the landscapes were stunning and there was a lot of entertainment. However, there was not a glimpse to catch of the diversity he experienced in Santiago. That is why Cristián, looking back at this now, does not understand the decision back then to go back to the South of the country. “It is a bit confusing”, Cristián said, “even though I missed the openness and freedom, the beauty of that city will always have a place in my heart.”
The best decision of his life
After one and a half years, he started looking for a place with more diversity and respect. He says: “I felt that my sexuality, my development as a queer person, was stuck. I realised that every time I visited friends in Santiago. I missed such an environment, where people think beyond their own life and region. I also saw that many of my friends were also planning to move. I was sure I was not gonna stay there alone.”
Berlin seemed an interesting city to him and he already had a friend living there. Cristián moved in with this friend and stayed for three months with a tourist agreement. He loved it. He decided to go back to Chile to arrange everything necessary to move to Germany. But arriving in Chile, the pandemic hit and a lockdown was announced; the plan was off.
Provisional.
The period of the pandemic was difficult for Cristián. Architecture and construction were the first that needed to stop their work. It took him two years to fully recover and recuperate. And it was lonely, alone in a huge city, waiting for new opportunities to come. Once he had the budget, he made a decision: he was going to Portugal.
After a hard time during the pandemic, Berlin didn’t have his preference anymore. He wanted to avoid hard winters and the cold of the North of Europe. He was convinced that Portugal would bring him a sunnier experience. Besides the weather, Portugal seemed a good choice because of the language, Portuguese is easy to learn when you speak Spanish. And he had already two of his best friends living in Lisbon for a year with whom he could live. That was ideal.
He says: “After the pandemic situation, I was traumatised about being closed and alone. I didn’t want to be alone again, I wanted something easy after the hard times during the pandemic.” After 1,5 years living in Lisbon Cristián didn’t regret this decision for a second: “I think it was the best decision of my life.”
A city of surprises
From the moment Cristián arrived in Lisbon, he had a positive impression of the city. His arrival in Lisbon felt like a warm bath: “My friends already had friends and a network in Lisbon and therefore I felt like I already had a life here. It was not as if I had to start over. I spent my first weekend here with them. I loved them all.”
Cristián’s initial plan was to go temporarily for a sabbatical. But already the second week in Lisbon, it didn’t feel good for him to have nothing to do and he soon started a job in the tourism sector. After a few months, Cristián realised that he didn’t want to leave Lisbon after all. He decided to stay with his friends. That decision felt great: “I didn’t want to start over somewhere else and experience loneliness again. Lisbon was the best decision because every day I enjoy my work, I never get bored seeing the views, the facades and the colours. I love the hilly city; at every step, you have a different view. It is a city of surprises.”
He also describes that the city has the atmosphere of a town, “it is stress-releasing, and it doesn’t feel like you are in a metropolis. When you are in the neighbourhood it feels like a small town, with small streets, and silence.” The city calms him down, this is the biggest contrast with his experience with cities such as Madrid, Berlin or London. Lisbon is more peaceful. But most importantly, he feels safe here: “I never felt safer during a walk in the middle of the night than I do in Lisbon, nowhere in the United States nor Europe. Especially as a queer person it is not so obvious to feel that way everywhere. And here in Lisbon, I feel that safety in my daily life. For example: with my friends, we like to perform sometimes; going dancing and singing on the streets, and it never felt like we got judged.”
The paradox of Lisbon
This freedom and safety that Cristián experiences as a queer person in Lisbon, is at odds with what he sees when he looks around in the city. The street scene is quite a binary environment: “I think there is a heteronormative normality in the street. And I don’t see a lot of diversity of bodies, or colours in the street.” Cristián describes Lisbon, and especially some parts of the city, as traditional. He sees it in how people dress (clothes define gender), and speak; there is not a very open vision integrated in the city. “For example dressing extraordinarily in the streets in Lisbon feels out of tune for me. It could be a bit more diverse.”
It is a paradox: the traditional street scene where a queer person can feel safer than anywhere else. Cristián is convinced that both can be true, “you can see not so much diversity but still feel free.” At the same time, Cristián notes that the city is developing when it comes to diversity: “More and more people from abroad come here and the city becomes step by step more diverse. The traditional street scene is changing.” This makes Lisbon even more attractive to Cristián.
However, more important is the tolerance and respect. He has never heard somebody speaking disrespectfully about homosexuality here and never felt unsafe on the streets of Lisbon. “Violence and aggressiveness are not in the character of Lisbon”, Cristián concludes.
Exactly this is what Cristián had been looking for his whole life. Lisbon surprised him when he arrived 1,5 years ago and still surprises him during every walk he takes. He never stops discovering new places, views and characteristics of the city. He plans to stay in Lisbon, following the city’s developments in diversity, discovering more of the beauty of the city and above all, developing himself freely in any aspect of life.
For Cristián, Lisbon is the safe space to do so.
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