San Francisco: California added five more states, including Florida, to a list of places where the country-funded journey was blocked due to laws that discriminate against members of the LGBTQ community, the Attorney General announced Monday.
Democratic Prosecutor General Rob Bonta added Florida, Arkansas, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia to a list that now has 17 states where the travel of civil servants is prohibited unless limited circumstances.
“Don’t get me wrong: we are in the middle of a large wave that has never happened before and discrimination in this country – and the state of California will not support it,” said Bonta.
Parliamentarians in 2016 prohibit non-essential trips to countries with laws that discriminate against lesbian people, gay, bisexual and transgender.
12 other countries in the list are: Texas, Alabama, Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas, Mississippi, Tennessee.
The five new countries added to the list have introduced bills in their legislature this year which prevented transgender women and women participate in school sports consistent with their gender identity, block access to health care and enables LGBTQ community discrimination, said Bonta.
Florida, Montana, Arkansas, and West Virginia issued laws that prevent transgender women and women begin to participate in school sports consistent with their gender identity.
Northern Dakota signed a bill of bills that enable certain public-funded student organizations to limit LGBTQ students from joining without losing funds.
Arkansas passed the first law in this country to ban doctors from giving health services that affirm gender to underage children of transgender – regardless of the desire of parents or whether a doctor considered such treatment medically needed.
These parliamentarians “prefer to appear trans youth rather than focus on settlement of real problems such as handling weapons violence that defeats this pandemic and rebuilding our economy,” Bonta said.
The state law has an exception to several trips, such as the journey needed to enforce California law and to respect the contract signed before countries are added to the list.
Travel to conferences or training outside the country is an example of a blocked trip.
It is not clear what the California travel ban will have.
Bonta does not have information about how many state institutions that stop sending state employees to countries in the financial list or impact on the prohibition of California travel in these countries.