WARNING!
If you’re travelling and you believe there’s more than two genders and you’re one of them, or if you’re dressed in a way that catches the attention of a customs agent, or if you look vaguely Arabic, or if your phone contains text messages or articles or photographs critical to the “Dear Leader” (or your t-shirt does), or your gender is denoted as “X” on your passport and it doesn’t mean you’re a fan of Elon Musk, you may be refused entry at best, arrested and “disappeared” at worst.
Is this about entry to Iran? North Korea? Afghanistan? Venezuela? Nope. The “land of the free and the home of the brave.” The United States of America.
The United Kingdom recently issued the ultimate insult to the United States. A travel advisory. If you’re going to the US from Britain you are advised to be very, very careful. What they won’t tell you is in fact that it’s probably best if you don’t go at all. Take a “staycation” instead. Or travel to one of a few dozen lovely European capitals that don’t care if you love Trump or hate his guts. If you don’t want to go to the Land of Paranoia and Hate, nobody is going to blame you.
When travelling to the USA, the first American you’re likely to meet is a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent. Don’t piss him or her off. They have never been known for their sense of humour, especially now. They are more powerful than you are and effectively have final authority on whether or not your holiday or business trip is going to be routine or a goddamned waking nightmare.
Officially, the United States Department of State has issued an edict that “The policy of the United States is that an individual’s sex is not changeable.” So if you’re transgender you’re probably not going to get in. But that’s only where the problems start.
You are also advised that, depending on what state you’re going to, many Americans carry guns and they don’t like foreigners. So it’s recommended that you remain polite at all times, avoid any conflict where your “foreign-ness” might be held against you, and stay out of controversial topics, especially politics. Like I said, better to just stay home or go somewhere else.
The notion that the nation of my birth would be the subject of a travel advisory was unthinkable to me just a few years ago. In fact it would have never occurred to me to regard it as unthinkable. It’s like something out of an alternate history novel about post World War II after Hitler won. It doesn’t seem real. And yet, there it is.
I have no doubt that as Trump’s behaviour becomes more bizarre and irrational future UK government travel advisories will become increasingly draconian. Many Britons already cancelled their visits to the US before the travel advisory. The advisory just makes official what many already believed: America is no longer a British ally.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.