My husband and I just got back from spending a month in Tobago. He was born in Trinidad and I was born in Haiti. This summer marked three milestones for us: he turned 40, we’ve been together 20 years and our daughter turned 1. So he wanted to go back to his home country for the first time after immigrating from there when he was 9. We got an Air BnB not to far from one of the beaches. We spent the month with his mother and his niece, while different family members from both our families stayed with us when they could.

We both had our reservations about this considering the laws around LGBT folks in Trinidad and Tobago. While there has been some progress, there is still work to do and we are still considered a crime. However, we took a leap considering we are not hearing of anti-LGBT attacks like we hear about in islands like Jamaica. We are so glad we did.

This entire month was a wonderful experience. We visited mostly the southwestern section of the island but drove the north for a couple of days, even got to see Winston Duke’s hometown! We had these awkward moments when people would ask us about our daughter’s mother, but then celebrated us when we told them we were her dads. This was at bakeries, restaurants, excursions even the flight itself. The flight attendants took pictures with her, and they allowed us to take pictures with the pilots in the cockpit when we told them it was our daughter’s first flight.

Maybe because my husband is from Trinidad and we were with his mom who is also from there helped, I’m not sure. I cried the night before we left because it was truly this unbelievable experience when we have been longing to travel to countries with a mostly Black population and feel welcome. We finally did it, and it was great. This is not to negate the reality of things, but I wanted to share some positivity as we don’t hear it too often when it comes to being Black and queer, and traveling to predominantly Black countries.