The president of transgender studies at the University of Victoria is concerned about attendance during the conference of transmission of transforms this year, with expectations of a 40% drop in figures.
Aaron Devor says that potential American participants are reluctant to cross the border – not because of what could happen when they enter Canada, but what could happen when they try to return to the United States.
He said that President Donald Trump’s American administration sent a cold in the Trans community in January with an executive decree that the federal government recognizes two sexes, men and women, which cannot change and are an “immutable biological classification” of the design.
Devor says that the Biennale Conference of Transs which will start on Thursday hoped for 500 participants according to past events, but only about 300 were now expected.
“The difference, I attribute almost entirely to the Americans who are afraid of leaving their own country,” said Devor, who is the founder and host of the conferences.
Trump’s decree indicates that any identification issued by the government, including passports and visas, must “precisely reflect the sex of the holder”.
The US State Department said that it would stop issuing travel documents with the “X” gender marker preferred by many non -binary people, and it will only publish passports with a “M” or “F” sexual marker corresponding to the “biological sex” of the person at birth.
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“What I see has changed in the light of the Trump administration and the actions that have been taken by the Trump administration is that trans-plus people in the United States are very nervous at the idea of crossing Canada to come to the conference because they have to return to the United States,” said Devor.
The conference, which takes place until Sunday, involves activists, academics and artists from around the world, known as the University, with more than 100 guests making presentations.
The organizers say that the event addresses “both our history and the crucial problems that have an impact on us today and in the future – locally, national and global”.
The American philanthropist Jennifer Pritzker, who offered a fundamental gift to help start the chair in transgender studies at the University of Victoria, is scheduled for Thursday evening.
Immigration lawyer Adrienne Smith, who was invited as a lecturer of panel to the conference, said that the Trump administration had spread disinformation and transphobia, leaving members of the trans community feeling very dangerous.
“And I think it is important to note that trans people have always been afraid. We have always lived in the shadow of danger, but this danger is much larger and much closer now,” said Smith.
Smith applauded the conference for having enabled participation by video this year for the first time.
The first conference on the moving in the history of the forward trans took place at the university in 2014 with a hundred activists and researchers who attended the event.
Devor said that the context of this year’s conference had changed, with “so many rhetorics and anti-trans organization.”
“And we are confronted with the president of the most powerful nation in the world, who tries to claim that trans people do not exist at all, and do their best to erase all proof that trans people exist,” said Devor.
Smith, who is director of litigation at Catherine White Holman Wellness Center, said their office had been overwhelmed by immigration requests from trans hoping to leave the United States and come to Canada.
But Smith said there were few immigration paths available for them.
Smith said the Trump administration wanted the transparents to be afraid and withdraw from public life.
“And not to go to important things like a conference where we can talk about human rights and human rights, do not sit, we do not let ourselves know where one of the other is and really separate from our community,” said Smith.
“It’s intentional and it works.”
& Copy 2025 the Canadian press