Transgender comedian Ava Val had her sights set on moving to the United States and touring there, but after facing visa issues and growing hostility toward trans people, she cancelled that leg of her tour.
Speaking with Saskatoon Morning host Stephanie Massicotte on Thursday, Val said growing up she was inspired to go down the path of comedy partly because of the British sitcom Mr. Bean, and its ability to bring her family together — something Val was keen on doing on her tour.
This June, Val was set to tour and live in the United States, but her visa application was suddenly held up, forcing her to cancel.
“Slowly as things started to develop in in the current [U.S.] administration, it just seemed like more and more hostility was just developing towards trans people,” said Val, who is based in Toronto.
U.S. President Donald Trump declared in his inaugural address on Jan. 20 that “it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female,” and swiftly issued executive orders and changes to the government’s policies on gender and diversity.
Those included Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s memo titled Guidance for Visa Adjudicators on Executive Order 14201: ‘Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,’ which encompassed the directive that “all visas must reflect an applicant’s sex at birth.”
“That’s essentially the point at which I was just like, I don’t know if I’ll even be allowed down there, so I might as well make alternate plans,” Val said.
“I don’t want to go where nobody wants me. Fine, I’ll make it on my own, I’ll go to Saskatoon, I’ll compete against Pierre Poilievre,” Val joked, as the Conservative Party leader was set to hold a rally in Saskatoon the same night as her performance.
John Hampton, a two-spirit person and CEO of the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, is a dual citizen who has also experienced ramifications from the U.S. administration’s changes to gender policy.
They regularly travel across the border for work and personal reasons, including recently for the opening of an exhibition at The Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis.
Hampton said their U.S. passport came up for renewal this year and they tried to renew it early.
Since 2019, Canadians who do not identify as female or male, like Hampton, can list their gender as “X” on their passports. The federal government says about 3,600 Canadians have the marker on their passports.
“I sent that in nice and early, but unfortunately apparently not early enough because it got held on to for quite a while,” Hampton said on CBC’s The 306.
Hampton says when they got their passport back, the “X” had been changed to an “M.”
They made their first trip to the U.S. with the new passport in February and said they felt fear going to the border, but so far the trips have been “perfectly” smooth.
