State Department Deletes Transgender Travel Advisory
international travel advisory page. The department’s “International Travel” section on the website, which used to be designated for “LGBTQI+” travelers, now only denotes “LGB Travelers”“LGB travelers can face special challenges abroad,” the website reads. “Laws and attitudes in some countries may affect safety and ease of travel.
Many countries do not recognize same-sex marriage.“Many countries also only recognize the male and female sex markers in passports and do not have IT systems at ports of entry that can accept other sex markers,” the page adds, the sole reference that transgender or nonbinary individuals may have received “X” markers on their passports.The page also warns LGB travelers about their conduct abroad.“About 70 countries still consider consensual same-sex relations a crime,” it reads. “In some of these countries, individuals who engage in same-sex sexual relations may face severe punishment.”Since taking office last month, President Donald Trump has issued a slew of executive orders seeking to crack down on LGBTQ visibility and erase transgender rights or protections by refusing to acknowledge any gender identity beyond that of male or female and that does not align with a person’s assigned sex at birth.
One of those orders states that U.S. policy is only to recognize sex as binary and fixed at birth. It reverses a policy that allowed transgender, nonbinary, or intersex individuals to obtain “X” markers on their passports.
