Is UK Foreign Office warning LGBT citizens traveling to USA?

Rumours are spreading across social media that the UK Foreign Office is now warning its LGBT citizens about travelling to certain states in the United States that have passed legislation that is considered hostile towards gay and transgender people.

The rumours are mostly true. While the UK Foreign Office is not actively discouraging UK residents from visiting certain states within the US, it has updated its Local Laws and Customs section of its United States travel advice section to include warnings about [specifically] the states of Mississippi and North Carolina, both of which have passed laws that campaigners claim are aggressive or discriminatory against the LGBT community.

The updated section of the UK Foreign Office Local Laws and Customs website concerning travel to the United States is –

The US is an extremely diverse society and attitudes towards LGBT people differ hugely across the country. LGBT travellers may be affected by legislation passed recently in the states of North Carolina and Mississippi. Before travelling please read our general travel advice for the LGBT community. You can find more detail on LGBT issues in the US on the website of the Human Rights Campaign.

Such warnings are usually put into place by the UK Foreign Office when the laws at a particular destination differ drastically from current legislation within the UK.

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North Carolina recently enacted the controversial “Bathroom Bill” – known as HB2 – that makes it illegal for transgender people to use single-sex public facilities (such as toilets) of the gender that they identify with, instead forcing them to use the single-sex facility corresponding to their biological gender. Campaigners argue that this is discriminatory and promotes the rhetoric that transgender people are predatory.

The law has already reportedly had a negative impact on tourism within the state, which has also seen several high profile musicians cancel shows there, as well as PayPal cancelling plans to open an operation centre in the city of Charlotte.

Mississippi has recently passed the Religious Liberty Accommodations Act, which, among other things, states that employees, businesses, and social workers cannot be punished for denying services based on the belief that marriage is between one man and a one woman. The same applies for people who act on the belief that “sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage” and that gender is biologically assigned at birth. It directs the government can’t prevent businesses from firing a transgender employee, clerks from refusing to license a same-sex marriage, or adoption agencies from refusing to place a child with a couple who they believe may be having premarital sex.

Campaigners have claimed that the “religious liberty” law is one of the worse pieces of legislation regarding LGBT rights.

The current advise given by the UK Foreign Office website can be seen here.