United Nations headquarters in New York City — Photo: Neptuul / Wikimedia Commons
The Trump administration has stopped issuing visas to the same-sex partners of foreign diplomats, officials, and United Nations employees.
Effective as of Monday, Oct. 1, the new policy dictates that only those who are married to their same-sex partner will be issued visas — regardless of whether the official or employee is from a country that has legalized same-sex marriage — Foreign Policy magazine reports.
In a memo circulated at U.N. headquarters in New York, same-sex partners were effectively told they had until the end of 2018 to get married or get out of the country. Currently, only 27 countries around the world have legalized same-sex marriage.
The United States said the change in policy was intended to reflect current practices for U.S. diplomats, where spousal visas are only granted to married spouses following the legalization of marriage equality nationwide in 2015.
It revoked a policy introduced by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2009 to extend visas to domestic partners to accommodate same-sex diplomats and officials.
Samantha Power, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under President Barack Obama, called the move by the Trump administration “needlessly cruel and bigoted” in a tweet.
Needlessly cruel & bigoted: State Dept. will no longer let same-sex domestic partners of UN employees get visas unless they are married. But only 12% of UN member states allow same-sex marriage. https://t.co/MjZpRVLYcf
Foreign Policy estimated that at least 10 U.N. employees would be affected by the change. Fabrice Houdart, Human Rights Officer at the United Nations, noted one particular example in a Facebook post after the policy change was announced in July.
“An example of who the policy change could affect is an Italian lesbian economist, working for the United Nations here in NYC, her partner and her biological child,” Houdart wrote. “Since 2009, at the initiative of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton…the partner and her child could obtain G-4 visas from the State department to join the mother in NYC provided they registered their domestic partnership with the UN (or the World Bank or the IMF). This would not be the case any longer and coming December 2018, the lesbian partner and child would be expected to return to Italy within 30 days.”
Houdart said that the couple could get married in America, but that would not automatically guarantee that the spouse would be allowed to remain in the country, noting that the policy requires that documentation of marriage come from the “sending State,” not the U.S.
“Indeed, under the public policy exception, if one’s US marriage violates the public policy of one’s home country, then the marriage would not automatically be valid,” Houdart wrote.
However, UN-GLOBE, an advocacy group for LGBTQ U.N. workers, said in a tweet that “it’s up to the UN to decide what location qualifies as a marriage issuer for a visa, not the state dept.”
In a statement, UN-GLOBE called the policy move “an unfortunate change in rules, since same-sex couples, unlike opposite-sex couples, have limited choices when it comes to marriage.”
“If you are already in New York City, consider getting married in City Hall, but make sure you fulfill all requirements,” it added.
David Urban, a Republican strategist and CNN commentator who served as a senior advisor to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, has written an op-ed accusing Democrats of fear-mongering for suggesting that the U.S. Supreme Court might overturn its 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision legalizing same-sex marriage.
In his USA Today op-ed, Urban accuses "hyperpartisan liberals" of trying to "sow fear and discontent" by suggesting that the Supreme Court could reverse its own precedent and strike down the 2015 ruling -- a move that would immediately reinstate same-sex marriage bans still on the books in 32 states.
The U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for the Trump administration to enforce a policy mandating that U.S. passports list a traveler’s sex as assigned at birth, based on biological characteristics.
On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that the U.S. government would recognize only two sexes, effectively erasing transgender identity. The order, which pledged to uphold "the biological reality of sex," directed the State Department to revise its passport policies to "accurately reflect the holder's sex."
U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson, one of several Democrats targeted in Texas's latest gerrymander, says she will seek reelection after a federal three-judge panel blocked a Republican-backed congressional map that would have drawn her out of her Dallas-area district for 2026.
The lesbian congresswoman is one of five Texas Democrats whose districts were reshaped to give Republicans a 2026 edge, and among several Democrats who were effectively drawn out of the seats they currently represent.
In Johnson's case, the proposed map would have stretched her Dallas-based 32nd District into Republican-leaning Rockwall County and rural East Texas, while shifting her hometown of Farmers Branch into GOP Rep. Beth Van Duyne's 24th District, a seat Trump won by 16 points in 2024.
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