The Californian government won’t pay for travel to states with anti-LGBTQ laws.
During a news conference on Monday, California state Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that the state would be officially banning nearly all state-sponsored travel to and from Arkansas, Florida, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia. To clarify, California residents are still free to come and go to these states as they please, but if state employees want to go, the local government won’t pay for it.
According to Bonta, the impetus for these new restrictions are laws in the five states that discriminate against LGBTQ individuals, specifically laws that “directly work to ban transgender youth from playing sports, block access to life-saving care, or otherwise limit the rights of members of the LGBTQ+ community.”
“It’s unfortunate that some politicians would rather demonize trans youth than focus on solving real issues like tackling gun violence, beating back this pandemic and rebuilding our economy,” Bonta said. “Make no mistake: We’re in the midst of an unprecedented wave of bigotry and discrimination in this country, and the state of California is not going to support it.”
With these new bans, California now has state-sponsored travel restrictions on 17 states in total. These bans are enacted under Assembly Bill 1887, which “prohibits the state from requiring employees to travel to a state subject to AB 1887’s travel prohibition,” as well as “prohibits California from approving a request for state-funded or state-sponsored travel to such a state.”
LGBTQ advocacy groups expressed gratitude to the Californian government for taking other states to task over discriminatory laws. “California’s announcement today shows that states passing anti-transgender laws will face real world consequences for their cruel actions. The legislatures that have enacted these laws are choosing to trade away economic opportunities in order to target transgender young people based with no pretext,” Human Rights Campaign President Alphonso David told CNN.
