Canadian singer Bells Larsen, a woman who pretends to be a man, announced Friday that she canceled all of the American shows on her spring tour, blaming the Trump administration's requirement that visa applicants state their actual sex on their applications.
The female singer, who planned to exclusively play in blue states, indicated that she received an email last week from the American Federation of Musicians "stating that I am no longer able to apply for a Visa because US Immigration now only recognizes identification that corresponds with one's assigned sex at birth."
Contrary to Larsen's suggestion, which was uncritically embraced by leftists online — including the United Musicians and Allied Workers union — the singer is entirely capable of applying for a visa. However, to do so successfully would require her acknowledgment that she is indeed a woman.
On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order rejecting gender ideology and instructing the government to recognize only two sexes, male and female.
The president directed Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to "implement changes to require that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards, accurately reflect the holder's sex."
'I truly don't know which phrasing holds more truth.'
Rubio gave guidance in February instructing all visa-issuing posts to ensure that the sex listed on an issued visa corresponds to the visa holder's immutable biological classification as either male or female.
The guidance noted that:
generally, the sex listed on the foreign passport should be considered as prima facie evidence of the applicant's sex as defined in the E.O. However, there may be instances when a consular officer becomes aware that the sex listed on the foreign passport may not be the applicant's sex as defined in the E.O. In such cases, the adjudicator should confirm the applicant's sex as defined in the E.O., indicate that sex on the visa, and add a case note documenting any discrepancy between the passport and the visa to prevent issues at the [point of entry].
Canadian passports are unreliable when it comes to evidencing an applicant's sex because Canadian passport holders can request a gender identifier for the opposite sex and even for "another gender" besides male or female.
The request form winks at this unreliability, notifying Canadians that the sex identifier on their travel document "may not be universally accepted for entry or exit by border authorities of another country."
Larsen apparently failed to read the fine print.
"To put it super plainly, because I'm trans (and have an M on my passport), I can't tour in the States," wrote the female singer. "I hesitate to include a 'right now' or an 'anymore' at the end of my previous sentence, because — in this sociopolitical climate — I truly don't know which phrasing holds more truth."
Larsen suggested that her announcement was somehow ironic because her new album is about her adoption of a male persona following elective mastectomies and testosterone therapy, adding, "This new policy has crushed my dreams."
'President Trump promised the American people a revolution of common sense.'
After doing her best to use the manufactured controversy to promote herself, Larsen implored her fellow Canadians to vote in the upcoming federal election in which conservative populist Pierre Poilievre seeks to unseat as prime minister the self-identified "European" World Economic Forum frequenter Mark Carney.
Earlier this month, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced it was updating its policy manual to clarify that it recognizes only two biological sexes, male and female.
"President Trump promised the American people a revolution of common sense, and that includes making sure that the policy of the U.S. government agrees with simple biological reality," Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. "Proper management of our immigration system is a matter of national security, not a place to promote and coddle an ideology that permanently harms children and robs real women of their dignity, safety, and well-being."
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A foreign radical pursuing his doctorate at Cornell University was reportedly suspended twice last year and banned from campus for engaging in unlawful pro-Hamas demonstrations. Academic suspension customarily guarantees the revocation of an F-1 student visa.
The Trump State Department reportedly followed through, tearing up the visa of Momodou Taal and instructing him to surrender to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on March 14.
Rather than accept the consequences of his actions, Taal — a 31-year-old citizen of both Gambia and the U.K. who stated, "Glory to the resistance," as terrorists were slaughtering Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023; championed violence against so-called colonizers "by any means necessary"; called for the "end of the US empire in our lifetime"; and taught a course called "What Is Blackness?" — recently asked a judge to block his deportation and joined a pair of radicals in suing President Donald Trump, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, and the Department of Homeland Security.
Taal's attorneys claimed that the Trump administration is violating foreigners' free-speech rights and attempting to remove the pro-terror Gambian from the country because he is a "pro-Palestinian activist who attended a protest."
'Taal faced suspension on more than one occasion due to his disorderly behavior and long-term pattern of disregarding the rights of other students.'
While attorneys attempted to characterize Taal as an inoffensive fly on the wall of the pro-Hamas protests he helped lead, the university claimed in an April 26, 2024, letter concerning student code of conduct violations that the foreign radical repeatedly engaged in disorderly conduct, disrupted university activities, ignored university officials' lawful directives, and made unauthorized entry to various private spaces at Cornell.
Roy Stanley, the unit chief of the Counterterrorism Intelligence Unit at ICE's Homeland Security Investigations' Office of Intelligence, said in a sworn statement, "Mr. Taal faced suspension on more than one occasion due to his disorderly behavior and long-term pattern of disregarding the rights of other students and the general public and was in fact banned from campus for a period of time while one suspension was being reviewed."
Stanley further alleged that Taal previously got physical with campus police and, per a senior associate dean at the university, "demonstrated a pattern of escalating, egregious behavior."
Taal's attorneys suggested further that the Trump administration's push to arrest and possibly deport Taal was based on the president's executive order combating anti-Semitism and his directive protecting the homeland from foreign terrorist threats — a claim the government has denied.
Trump said in a statement corresponding with the first of these two executive orders:
To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you. I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.
The lawsuit alleged that Trump's orders have "unconstitutionally silenced Plaintiffs and chilled protected expression" and asked that Biden-appointed U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Coombe both to assume jurisdiction over the matter and to block the Trump administration from enforcing the president's two executive orders.
'I think the time is to double down, escalate.'
Attorneys for the government noted in a March 22 court filing that Taal's injunction request is unconstitutional; that his First Amendment claims are meritless; that an injunction by yet another Democrat-appointed judge would violate Article II and the separation of powers; that the foreign plaintiffs are not entitled to relief; and that the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over Taal's First and Fifth Amendment challenges "because it is well-established that aliens may not circumvent Congress's bar on review of discretionary immigration enforcement or channeling of available review to immigration proceedings."
The Cornell Daily Sun reported that Ethan Kanter, chief of the national security unit for the DOJ's Office of Immigration Litigation, told Coombe at a hearing Tuesday that the case should not be heard by the Northern New York District Court but instead during removal proceedings in a federal court of appeals since Taal's visa was revoked before he filed suit.
Kanter noted further that contrary to the plaintiffs' contention, the executive orders did not direct agencies to target or limit speech.
Taal's attorney indicated that the Gambian radical was not present at the hearing because he is fearful of being arrested. Taal did, however, make an appearance on "Democracy Now" on Monday, telling host Amy Goodman, "I don't think the time is to keep quiet. I think the time is to double down, escalate, keep going, and keep raising the issue of Palestine."
Various leftist groups on and off campus have signaled support for Taal.
One demonstrator outside the courthouse Tuesday suggested that Trump's executive order combating anti-Semitism amounts to a "slippery slope into fascism," then unironically quoted Pastor Martin Niemöller's poem "First They Came" about doing nothing about the targeting of Jews.
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Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, believes that foreign national students who decide to scoff at the privilege of being in the United States by rioting and assaulting police officers should be stripped of their visas and financial aid, and likely be deported. While the Trump administration has already taken steps to deport students like Mahmoud Khalil […]
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