Organizers of WorldPride, a global LGBTQ Pride event series to be held this year in Washington, say they are considering issuing an advisory for transgender people from overseas, citing recent policies put forward by the Trump administration.
“It’s possible that we may actually issue a statement telling trans folks internationally not to come, or if they come, they come at their own risk,” Capital Pride Alliance Executive Director Ryan Bos said this week at a monthly meeting of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.
International travelers are already facing heightened difficulties entering and leaving the country, said Ashley Smith, Capitol Pride Alliance’s board president, and some transgender people from abroad are wary of visiting the U.S. with passports or other identity documents that do not match their sex at birth.
The State Department in January suspended a policy allowing trans, nonbinary and intersex Americans to update the sex designations on their passports, causing confusion and concern about whether it is safe for them to travel overseas. The department previously allowed U.S. passport holders to self-select their sex designations, including an “unspecified” gender marker denoted by the letter X.
The new policy stems from President Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order declaring the U.S. recognizes only two sexes, male and female.
Officials in Denmark and Finland last month advised transgender and gender-nonconforming citizens to practice caution when traveling to the U.S., and trans people across the nation — including the actress Hunter Schafer — have shared on social media stories of their passports being involuntarily updated to reflect their sex at birth, rather than their gender identity.
Seven transgender and nonbinary Americans are challenging the new policy in federal court, arguing it is motivated by “impermissible animus.”
Smith said WorldPride organizers are addressing visitors’ concerns as they come.
“We’re communicating as best as possible about the different safety measures,” he said. “We’re talking consistently, and we’re having meetings nearly every single day, all day long, to go through this as well as so many other things.”
Council of Governors Vice Chair Charles Allen said he attributes any decline in international travelers to the celebrations next month in Washington “completely to the change in administration.”
Potential warnings to visitors from abroad, he said, “have nothing to do with the local communities, the state communities, the County communities, and fall squarely with the incredibly shameful tactics we’ve seen in language from the federal administration.”
Allen added that he was “deeply disappointed” by reports that corporate sponsors had backed away from WorldPride since Trump’s return to office in January.
“It can’t be lost on us that fear is used as a weapon,” he said.
WorldPride organizers have said they expect roughly 2 million people to attend the event, which will run between May 17 and June 8 in Washington.