Several LGBTQ+ swimming groups decide to skip this year’s WorldPride in Washington DC, citing Trump’s sustained attacks against LGBTQ+ communities

Several LGBTQ+ swimming groups have decided to skip this year’s WorldPride in Washington DC, citing Trump’s attacks against LGBTQ+ communities.

Toronto’s Purple Fins, a “gender free” swimming club, is one of several aquatics teams with bi, non-binary or trans athletes that made the difficult decision to skip the games and the Pride events in the United States entirely, worried about their treatment at the border and beyond.

“Are my rights gonna be respected? Can my teams’ rights be respected? Are we going to be assaulted and have the authorities defend us, instead of the attacker? Those are all questions we couldn’t definitively say yes to,” said Ry Shissler, who identifies as a trans person of unspecified gender.

It was a tough call for the Canadian team, said Shissler, a dual US and Canadian citizen who grew up in Michigan.

“We want to just be able to be ourselves and go swim and have a good time and maybe win a medal… But to say no, it’s not safe for us to go have fun? That’s really hard.”

Washington is the site of the 2025 WorldPride celebrations, a biennial celendar of cultural and sporting events, capped by a Pride Parade.

Organisers hoped that between 800 and 1,000 swimmers and water polo players would take part in the World LGBTQIA+ Aquatics Championship at WorldPride, however: “We are definitely not seeing the numbers that we usually see, and that’s unfortunate,” said Rozalynd McCree, co-president of the board of IGLA+, which oversees the games. McCree says while IGLA+ is doing all it can to ensure participants’ safety, it can’t make any guarantees.

“The athletes who do come and the athletes who are in the United States are going to show up and speak up, and we are going to fight for our community because it’s important to us,” she said. “We won’t sit down and be quiet.”