“I simply can’t go there, or I’ll get into trouble,” De Sutter told Belgian news agency Belga. “Or I’ll cause some kind of incident, and I have no interest in that.”
Trump has issued a flurry of executive orders that target transgender people. His administration has sought to recognize only two, unchangeable sexes, male and female, remove “nonbinary” or “other” options from federal documents, including passports and visas, and ban transgender people from competing in sports.
De Sutter stressed by email to POLITICO that she was steering clear of the U.S. in a bid to avoid a “diplomatic” incident.
“I am a former deputy prime minister after all,” she said, declining to comment further.
De Sutter served as an MEP with the Greens/European Free Alliance from 2019 to 2020, before becoming Belgium’s deputy prime minister and minister of public administration and public enterprises in October 2020, making history as the continent’s first openly transgender national-level minister.