Canada warns trans travellers of US risks

Follows a spate of new laws in Republican states that ban sex-reassignment surgery for children and ‘drag time story hour’.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland defended the move. Picture: AFP

The Canadian government has urged transgender Canadians to be on alert when travelling to the United States, citing a surge in “laws and policies that may affect 2SLGBTQI+ persons”, including recent crackdowns on ‘drag time story hour’ in some US public schools.

Global Affairs Canada, the Trudeau government’s foreign ministry, updated its official travel advisory for the US on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST), buying into increasingly polarising debate within the US about public support for sex-reassignment surgery for minors and the appropriate level of sex education in primary schools.

“Since the beginning of 2023, certain states in the US have passed laws banning drag shows and restricting the transgender community from access to gender affirming care and from participation in sporting events,” the foreign ministry’s spokesman said.

“Some states have enacted laws and policies that may affect 2SLGBTQI+ persons. Check relevant state and local laws,” the new advisory stated, without pointing to any US laws or regulations in particular.

Such warnings are usually reserved for countries known for LGBTQI rights violations, such as Russia, Egypt and Uganda. Canada’s travel advisories generally focus on risks linked to political instability or natural disasters.

According to Canada’s Kid’s Helpline, 2SLGBTQIA stands for Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Androgynous and Asexual.

Canada’s deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland defended the update, refusing to say whether the Biden administration, which has put LGBTQI+ rights at the centre of its social policy agenda, had been informed in advance.

The US government introduced passports with an X, or “non-binary gender” in 2021, moving toward a “choose your own sex” model for American travel documentation in place in only a handful of countries, including Canada.

“I think our government has shown that that’s a priority … that we’re able to manage that relationship, regardless of the choices that the people of the United States make,” Ms Freeland said at a press conference in Moncton.

“Every Canadian government, very much including our government, needs to put at the centre of everything we do the interests and the safety of every single Canadian, and of every single group of Canadians”.

Debate about transgender rights and sexual politics more broadly erupted in the US last year after Florida, legislated in March to require schools to inform parents about conversations teachers had with their children about gender or sexual identity up until third grade of primary school.

Dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law by its opponents, it came amid a spate of measures largely in Republican states to facilitate the removal of sexually explicit books from school libraries, including in Texas, Utah, South Carolina, which fuelled debate about

Montana in May became first US state to specifically ban people dressed in drag from reading books to children at public schools and libraries, following similar if less specific regulations against school drag shows in Florida in Tennessee.

Alongside a simmering debate in the US over whether transgender women should be able to compete in women’s sports, at least 20 US states have banned gender reassignment surgery for children, including Texas, the nation’s second biggest state, where a new law takes effect next week outlawing the controversial procedure.

Human Rights Watch, a civil liberties group, this month slammed what it called s a “co-ordinated push led by national anti-LGBTQ+ groups (to) override the recommendations of the American medical establishment and introduce hundreds of bills that target transgender and non-binary youth’s access to age-appropriate, medically necessary care”.

The Human Rights Campaign, the biggest LGBTQ advocacy group in the US, in June said US state parliaments had passed over 70 bills the organisation considered anti-LGBTQ, double last year‘s previous record.