Kind of surprising, really. I’ve been to St. Maarten maybe 20 times (easily 15 times too many) because I worked on a cruise ship that went there ad infinitum. Cheerful place, sort of interesting, 1/2 French, 1/2 Dutch, not as poverty stricken as say Antigua or even the worst of Mexico. In my mind, one would have to be really going obnoxiously wild or be bigtime in the wrong person’s face to be gay-bashed there....whatever that means.
I wouldn’t go to far off Front Street and my sister owned a sign business there for 25+ years. Brother-in-Law even longer. The signs where the cruise ship launches land are their’s.