Transgender Visa Applicants Subject to Ban
This edition highlights the alarming U.S. visa bans on transgender athletes and rising anti-democratic sentiments.
Let there be no mistake about it—this paragraph from The Guardian says it all: transgender residents of other countries are at risk of being permanently banned from visiting the United States of America. This should be infuriating to everyone!
The US state department has ordered officials worldwide to deny visas to transgender athletes attempting to come to the US for sports competitions and to issue permanent visa bans against those who are deemed to misrepresent their birth sex on visa applications.
Unless I’m reading this wrong, it doesn’t matter if someone is visiting the United States for a sports competition or if they’re coming just to visit for anything else, including the upcoming World Pride. If that’s the case, Los Angeles 2028 could very well be on par with Berlin 1936. I know LA28 is busy building things up and will continue doing so as they recover from the recent wildfires but at some point, the IOC will have to ask the hard questions. Hate should have no home here but the dehumanizing language towards both transgender Americans and transgender athletes and citizens from other countries is leading to an increasing number of comparisons with the Nazis.
Whether it will apply to transgender visitors from countries participating in the Visa Waiver Program remains to be seen. Matters like these might be harder to fight through the court system but I don’t know.
Before I say anything further, the Holocaust didn’t start with the camps. It started with words and dehumanizing laws. We’ve already seen such dehumanizing laws through the convicted felon’s executive orders. It’s one thing for the administration to ban criminals, but it’s another to use the visa permanent fraud provision—INA 212(a)(6)(C)(i)—to deny admission to transgender people, athletes or otherwise.
Nothing about any of this is normal. It’s federally mandated transphobia and it’s no different than the Nazi-mandated antisemitism. If anybody cannot see the difference, that’s on them. It’s growing more terrifying by the day, which perhaps explains why it’s so much easier writing about politics and American history.
Ukraine Update
I published a piece yesterday about the disgraceful votes by the US and Israel regarding the Ukraine resolution at the UN. I’ve since learned through Jewish Insider that America pressured Israel into voting against Ukraine. This will go down as one of the most shameful votes in both American and Israeli history.
Press Freedoms Under Attack
In what is continuing to be a disturbing sign, the White House Correspondents Association will no longer be allowed to choose the press pool reporter. This will be determined by the White House press team.
Coalition Building
I brought up Robert Reich’s comments the other day. What’s disturbing me as I scroll down Bluesky is how people are still thinking about current American politics as left vs. right, rejecting support from former Republicans and politically homeless conservatives.
If Democrats want to win back the House and Senate in 2026, it requires including former Republicans and anti-Trump conservatives in the coalition. We have to be thinking of this as democracy vs. fascism instead of left vs. right. I’m on Team Democracy.
2028 Watch
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker is saying all the right things. He addressed his recent State of the State address during a Tuesday appearance on The Lead with Jake Tapper.
“We're talking about the death of a constitutional republic. That's what happened in Germany in 1933, 1934. And we're seeing today that we've got an administration in Washington that's ignoring court orders.”
Gov. Pritzker touches on the same thing I just did above. The Nuremberg Laws didn’t get enacted until 1935. Hitler and the Nazis entered office in 1933 and immediately begin to demolish the Weimar Republic, a constitutional republic that existed during 1919-1933.