Montreal Gaelic sports club won't partake in U.S. competitions, citing LGBTQ+ safety

A man holds a flag on a hockey stick during the Pride parade in Toronto on June 25, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Mark Blinch

MONTREAL — A Montreal Gaelic sports club says it won't travel to the United States this summer for tournaments because of the policies of the Trump administration on transgender, nonbinary and gender non-conforming athletes.

The Montreal Shamrocks Gaelic Athletic Club says some members fear for their security in the U.S., and as a result the club declined invitations to compete in major Gaelic sports tournaments in Boston, Albany and Philadelphia.

The Shamrocks club has 150 members and was established in 1948 to promote Gaelic football, camogie and hurling, all Irish sports.

Larissa Andrusyshyn, who captains the Canadian camogie team, says the club has about 10 members who identify as transgender, nonbinary or use they/them pronouns. One of the players uses the X gender identifier on their passport, she adds.

Some members, including some who don't identify as LGBTQ+, had voiced fears about their safety in the U.S., Andrusyshyn says.

"They didn't feel their security could be guaranteed," she said in an interview Thursday, adding that the current U.S. administration has been working to erase LGBTQ+ identities.

"The other reason that came up is a few members didn't feel comfortable spending money in that economy," she said.

Since returning to office, U.S. President Donald Trump has signed a host of executive orders targeting the transgender community, including a ban on transgender athletes participating in girl’s and women’s sports. Trump has also signed orders to halt federal funding for gender-affirming health care for people under the age of 19, and to require that the federal government use only male and female sex designations on official documents.

Club chairman Jake Ouellette says players were initially excited to take part in the games before the political climate soured — Trump has also imposed tariffs on Canadian goods and threatened to use "economic force" to annex Canada into the 51st state.

“It’s a great way to promote Gaelic games and play against different teams outside our usual region,” Ouellette said in a statement Thursday.

Andrusyshyn says playing in the U.S., and against the Boston club in particular, would have provided a stiff challenge. More importantly, the tournaments would have served as good preparation for the Gaelic Athletic Association's Word Games next year, an international competition she compares to the FIFA World Cup for nations that play Gaelic sports.

In a press release the club said it will focus its 2025 on competitions held in Canada and partake in future tournaments in the U.S. when all its members “feel confident and safe” travelling to the country.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 6, 2025.

—With files from The Associated Press

Joe Bongiorno, The Canadian Press