Some athletes skip Washington's pride events, wary of welcome in Trump's US

TORONTO :Ry Shissler, a 40-year old cartographer who swims the backstroke, was planning to compete internationally for the first time during the WorldPride celebrations that start this month in Washington, D.C.

But the trans athlete and their team, Toronto’s Purple Fins, made the difficult decision to skip the games and the Pride events in the U.S. entirely, worried about their treatment at the border and beyond.

A self-described "gender free" swim club, the Purple Fins is one of several aquatics teams with bi, non-binary or transgender athletes whose members told Reuters they are not comfortable visiting the United States right now.

“Are my rights gonna be respected? Can my teams’ rights be respected? Are we going to be assaulted and have the authorities defend us, instead of the attacker? Those are all questions we couldn't definitively say yes to,” said Shissler, who identifies as a "trans person of unspecified gender."

It was a tough call for the Canadian team, said Shissler, a dual U.S. and Canadian citizen who grew up in Michigan.

“We want to just be able to be ourselves and go swim and have a good time and maybe win a medal... But to say no, it's not safe for us to go have fun? That's really hard.”

Washington is the site of the 2025 WorldPride celebrations, a biennial flurry of cultural and sporting events, capped by a parade and, this year, a Shakira concert.

Chosen before the last presidential election, organizers hoped Washington might match New York's 2019 celebrations that drew some four million visitors. But a cascade of policy changes by President Donald Trump and new laws in some U.S. states have put a chill on the events, say some.

The Trump administration says it is only recognizing two unchangeable sexes, male