Python has the concept of “naive” and “aware” times. The former refers to a timezone-capable date/time object that hasn’t been assigned a timezone, and the latter refers to one that has.

However, Python only provides an interface for “tzinfo” implementations: classes that define a particular timezone. It does not provide the implementations themselves. So, you either have to do your own implementations, or use something like the widely used “pytz” or “pytzpure” (a pure-Python version).

This is a quick example of how to write your own, courtesy of Google:

from datetime import tzinfo, timedelta, datetime


class _TzBase(tzinfo):
    def utcoffset(self, dt):
        return timedelta(hours=self.get_offset()) + self.dst(dt)

    def _FirstSunday(self, dt):
        """First Sunday on or after dt."""
        return dt + timedelta(days=(6 - dt.weekday()))

    def dst(self, dt):
        # 2 am on the second Sunday in March
        dst_start = self._FirstSunday(datetime(dt.year, 3, 8, 2))
        # 1 am on the first Sunday in November
        dst_end = self._FirstSunday(datetime(dt.year, 11, 1, 1))

        if dst_start <= dt.replace(tzinfo=None) < dst_end:
            return timedelta(hours=1)
        else:
            return timedelta(hours=0)

    def tzname(self, dt):
        if self.dst(dt) == timedelta(hours=0):
            return self.get_tz_name()
        else:
            return self.get_tz_with_dst_name()

    def get_offset(self):
        """Returns the offset in hours (-5)."""
        
        raise NotImplementedError()

    def get_tz_name(self):
        """Returns the standard acronym (EST)."""
        
        raise NotImplementedError()
    
    def get_tz_with_dst_name(self):
        """Returns the DST version of the acronym ('EDT')."""        
        
        raise NotImplementedError()


class TzGmt(_TzBase):
    """Implementation of the EST timezone."""

    def get_offset(self):
        return 0

    def get_tz_name(self):
        return 'GMT'
    
    def get_tz_with_dst_name(self):
        return 'GMT'


class TzEst(_TzBase):
    """Implementation of the EST timezone."""

    def get_offset(self):
        return -5

    def get_tz_name(self):
        return 'EST'
    
    def get_tz_with_dst_name(self):
        return 'EDT'

Use it, like so:

from datetime import datetime

now_est = datetime.now().replace(tzinfo=TzEst())
now_gmt = now_est.astimezone(TzGmt())

This produces a datetime object with an EST timezone, and then uses it to produce a GMT time.