The German government has issued a travel advisory for transgender and nonbinary people who are planning to visit the U.S.

The Rheinische Post, a German newspaper, reported the advisory the German Federal Foreign Office issued on March 5 specifically notes President Donald Trump’s executive order that bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers.

“The relevant gender identity of the applicant at the time of birth is the relevant one,” reads the German Federal Foreign Office advisory. “Travelers who have the ‘X’ gender marker or whose current gender entry differs from their gender identity at birth should contact the relevant U.S. diplomatic mission in Germany before entering the country and find out the applicable entry requirements.”

Germany’s Gender Self-Determination Act, which allows trans, nonbinary, and intersex people to legally change their name and gender through a simple declaration at a registrar’s office and then waiting three months, took effect last November.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio in response to Trump’s executive order directed State Department personnel to “suspend any application requesting an ‘X’ sex marker and do not take any further action pending additional guidance from the department.”

Trump on Feb. 5 issued an executive order that bans trans women and girls from female sports teams. The Guardian reported Rubio later instructed American consular officials to deny visas in “cases where applicants are suspected of misrepresenting their purpose of travel or sex”

“You should consider whether this misrepresentation is material such that it supports an ineligibility finding,” wrote Rubio in the Feb. 24 directive the Guardian said it obtained.

The newspaper further reported the directive directs consulate officials “to issue permanent visa bans against those who are deemed to misrepresent their birth sex on visa applications,” and to “apply Immigration and Nationality Act section 212(a)(6)(C)i) — the ‘permanent fraud bar’ — against trans applicants.”

“Unlike regular visa denials, this section triggers lifetime exclusion from the United States with limited waiver possibilities,” notes the Guardian.

A group of trans and nonbinary people last month filed a federal lawsuit against Trump’s passport directive.

The Lesbian and Gay Federation of Germany, a German LGBTQ and intersex rights group known by the acronym LSVD, in response to the Washington Blade’s request for comment on the German government’s travel advisory said it “strongly condemns the Trump administration’s latest attack on transgender and nonbinary people.”

“By erasing legal recognition of trans identities and forcing all official documents to reflect only sex assigned at birth, the U.S. government is actively endangering the rights and safety of trans and nonbinary individuals,” said LSVD in a statement. “The German government’s travel advisory warning trans and nonbinary travelers of potential entry issues is a necessary step — but it cannot be the only response.”

LSVD added Germany and the European Union “must make it clear: LGBTQ+ people are safe in the EU, and we will not tolerate the rollback of fundamental human rights anywhere in the world.”

“Our commitment to human rights must also be reflected in foreign policy,” said LSVD. “This includes using diplomatic channels to demand that the U.S. government respects trans rights, ensuring protections for asylum seekers, and strengthening international alliances to push back against anti-LGBTQ+ extremism.”

“The LSVD⁺ calls on the German government and EU institutions to take a firm stance and oppose these policies with all available means,” added the advocacy group in its statement. “Democracy and human rights cannot be selectively defended — when trans rights are attacked, all human rights are at risk.”

The Hungarian government last week said it will ban a public Pride march in the country’s capital.

“There will be no Pride in the public form in which we have known it in recent decades,” Gergely Gulyás, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s chief of staff, said on Feb. 27 during the government’s weekly press conference in Budapest, according to Politico. “We believe that the country should not tolerate Pride marching through the city center.”

The Budapest Pride march is scheduled to take place on June 28.

Politico reported that Gulyás during the press conference referenced a proposed constitutional amendment that states “the right of children to physical, mental, and moral development is irrevocable.” Politico also noted Gulyás did not tell reporters how the march would violate it.

“This should be decided by the court or the police, if necessary,” said Gulyás. “I don’t know if only a constitutional amendment is needed or if other laws should be changed as well, but as we said, Pride in its current form will not take place.”

Orbán and members of his ruling Fidesz party over the last decade have moved to curtail LGBTQ and intersex rights in Hungary.

A law that bans legal recognition of transgender and intersex people took effect in 2020. Hungarian MPs that year also effectively banned same-sex couples from adopting children and defined marriage in the constitution as between a man and a woman.

An anti-LGBTQ propaganda law took effect in 2021. The European Commission sued Hungary, which is a member of the European Union, over it.

MPs in 2023 approved the “snitch on your gay neighbor” bill that would have allowed Hungarians to anonymously report same-sex couples who are raising children. The Budapest Metropolitan Government Office in 2023 fined Lira Konyv, the country’s second-largest bookstore chain, 12 million forints ($31,482.31), for selling copies of British author Alice Oseman’s “Heartstopper.”

Former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, who is gay, participated in the Budapest Pride march in 2024 and 2023. Pressman was also a vocal critic of Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ crackdown.

“It is impossible not to see echoes of this in your Parliament’s vote earlier this year to encourage neighbors to report to the authorities their gay neighbors raising children,” said Pressman during a 2023 Budapest Pride reception, referring to Nazi Germany’s occupation of Hungary and the post-World War II Communist governments that ruled the country until 1989. “Turning neighbor on neighbor conjures a dark past of covert agents and informants, of fear and betrayal, in this country and this region that I do not need to recount.”

Budapest Pride spokesperson Johanna Majercsik on Monday noted to the Washington Blade in an email that Orbán “openly threatened Budapest Pride in his annual speech (on Feb. 22), and since then several government members have joined in this communication.”

“It is expected that they will try to make it impossible to organize the Pride march with some kind of legal amendment—all this by referring to the so-called child protection law from 2021, which is actually a Putin-style propaganda law,” said Majercsik. We have no further information at this point and are waiting for the amendment(s).”

Majercsik said the Hungarian government will “be admitting that there is no longer democracy” in the country if it “tries to actually ban the Pride march.”

“It is important to know that the Pride march is a demonstration that falls under the scope of the right of assembly, a right that is strictly protected by the constitution of Hungary,” said Majercsik. “Therefore, we will do everything we can to fight for the right of assembly of all Hungarians. We strongly believe that this case could also set a precedent, as if the government succeeds in banning the Pride march, after they could ban any other assembly (e.g. farmers, teachers, judges, etc.).”

Majercsik noted the Hungarian Helsinki Committee is offering Budapest Pride legal advice.

Elections will take place in Hungary in 2026.

Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers reported from Budapest in April 2024.

The Vatican has approved new guidelines that opens the door for gay men in Italy to become priests.

The New York Times on Jan. 10 reported the Vatican approved the guidelines the Italian Bishop’s Conference adopted last November.

The guidelines specifically stipulate seminaries cannot reject applicants simply because of their sexual orientation, as long as they remain celibate. They will remain in place for what the Times described as a “3-year trial period.”

“This development is a big step forward,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization, in a press release. “It clarifies previous ambiguous statements about gay seminary candidates, which viewed them with suspicion. This ambiguity caused lots of fear and discrimination in the church, way beyond the arena of seminary admissions.”

“This new clarification treats gay candidates in the same way that heterosexual candidates are treated,” added DeBernardo. “That type of equal treatment is what the church should be aiming for in regards to all LGBTQ+ issues.”

The Vatican in 2016 reaffirmed gay men becoming priests.

“The church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture,’” reads a document the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy released that Pope Francis approved.

The document essentially reaffirmed the Vatican’s 2005 position on the issue. (Benedict XVI was pope at the time.)

The Vatican’s tone towards LGBTQ and intersex issues has softened since Francis became pope in 2013.

Francis publicly backs civil unions for same-sex couples, and has described laws that criminalize homosexuality as “unjust.” Francis in 2023 said priests can bless same-sex couples.

The pontiff earlier this month named Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego, who DeBernardo notes has made “strong positive statements regarding LGBTQ+ issues,” as the new archbishop of Washington. President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Brian Burch, the president and co-founder of CatholicVote, an anti-LGBTQ Catholic group, to become the next U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.

Francis during a 2023 interview with an Argentine newspaper described gender ideology as “one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations” in the world because “it blurs differences and the value of men and women.” A declaration the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released last March with Francis’s approval condemned gender-affirming surgeries and “gender theory.”