The Canadian government is warning L.G.B.T.Q. travelers to the United States that they could be affected by a series of recently enacted state laws that restrict transgender and other gay people.
Global Affairs Canada, the foreign affairs department, added a transient notice on Tuesday to a long list of travel warnings involving the United States that had already included cautions about gun violence and terrorism.
“Some states have enacted laws and policies that will affect 2SLGBTQI+ individuals,” the notice reads. “Check relevant state and native laws.” (The starting of the Canadian government’s acronym, “2S,” represents two-spirit, an Indigenous term for somebody with a masculine and a female spirit.)
Jérémie Bérubé, a spokesman for the department, said in an announcement that the change was made because “certain states within the U.S. have passed laws banning drag shows and restricting the transgender community from access to gender-affirming care and from participation in sporting events” because the starting of this yr. The warning didn’t name specific states.
He added that, like all travel advisories, this one had followed a “thorough evaluation of assorted information sources, including consular trends observed by Canadian diplomats in the sphere.”
Mr. Bérubé didn’t reply to a matter about whether any Canadian travelers had sought help from Canadian diplomats due to recent state laws pertaining to L.G.B.T.Q. people.
Moves by state lawmakers, particularly in Florida, to curtail L.G.B.T.Q. rights have received distinguished attention within the Canadian news media, as has a rise in hate crimes directed toward that community. The Human Rights Campaign has calculated that 520 pieces of laws to limit or remove the rights of L.G.B.T.Q. people have been introduced this yr in state legislatures, with 70 of them enacted.
Helen Kennedy, the manager director of Egale Canada, an L.G.B.T.Q. rights group in Toronto, said that while her organization had not heard of Canadians being affected by the state measures, she anticipated that some would inevitably be caught up in them.
“We applaud our government for taking this step,” she said. “It sends a transparent message that even our closest neighbor can potentially be a hostile force toward our community.”
There has been far less political momentum in Canada to roll back L.G.B.T.Q. rights, which have strong court protection.
For almost two years, the Atlantic province of New Brunswick had a policy that required teachers to make use of the popular names and genders of schoolchildren. Premier Blaine Higgs has modified it to require that teachers obtain the permission of oldsters if the kid is under 16. But the move has not had wide support. Several members of the Legislature, including some cabinet ministers, quit Mr. Higgs’s Progressive Conservative caucus in protest. Despite that backlash, other conservative politicians have suggested that they’ll follow New Brunswick’s lead.
While the general threat assessment for travel to the United States stays at the bottom level, the country now joins many others that the Canadian government warns L.G.B.T.Q. travelers about, most in language far stronger than the recommendation for the United States. The recent advisory features a link to a page of general safety guidance for the community regarding international travel.
Florida and among the other states which have enacted anti-L.G.B.T.Q. laws and policies are popular tourist destinations for Canadians. Ms. Kennedy said that the laws was increasingly causing L.G.B.T.Q. Canadians making travel plans to ask, “Is this the most effective place to spend my money?”
