Like Trump’s changes in the US, sex policy can affect your passport

Last Friday, Hunter Schafer, the actress of Trans, who played in the HBO series “Euphoria”, published Eight and a half minute video on tiktok Revealing that she has just received a modern passport with a male marker – almost a decade after changing the gender marker to women in identity documents.

“I was shocked,” said Mrs. Schafer in the film. “I just didn’t think it would happen.”

President Trump signed executive order On January 20, which ordered the federal government to recognize people only by “unchanging biological classification as a man or woman”, which they were assigned from birth. In the case of Trans, intersial and disabled Americans who apply for passports or renewing, the change caused anxiety and confusion.

From June 2021 Department of State It allowed US sex transactions in the USA passports without providing a medical certificate. The agency also stated that it would stop publishing passports with a sex marker, which was available from April 2022.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on February 7 against Mr. Trump and the Department of State on behalf of seven transgender Americans. After this suit, here is what we know about how politics affects passport applications.

Who exactly does the order affect?

This applies to everyone who differs from sexual identity, which was assigned after birth.

According to UCLA’s Williams Institute, there are About 1.6 million transgender people in the United States. Although there is no clear number of people who employ x sex markers in America, there are About 5,200 people In the state of Up-to-date York with the assist of a marker on IDS and recently California Motor Vehicles Department He told the KCRA television station That there were 21,140 Californians using x markers on their state identifiers. AND report The USA issued by the Department of Health and Social Welfare also estimates on January 16 that the United States has over five million intersial people, which is a term for people born with anatomical or genetic features that do not match the typical definition of a man or woman.

The executive order requires that “identification documents issued by the government, including passports, visas and global input cards” reflect the sex of the person from birth, although currently critical documents remain critical, regardless of the gender marker until they expire.

Acl said on Tuesday that over 1,800 transgender, intersex and suspending sex with passport applications, which are suspended or in progress, were contacted. The LAMBDA LAMBDA LAMBDA LAMBDA Civil Rights have received over 800 questions regarding passports from January 20.

If you submitted an application for a passport from X, what is happening?

The State Department has been removed tag option xwhich was available without the need to support the documentation from 2022, from passport applications shortly after the executive order. His website “Sex marker in passports” card Now he says that “if you apply for a passport with a request for marker X or asking for a sex marker that differs from a sexual marker at birth, you can experience delays in obtaining a passport.” He adds that the State Department will eventually “give you a modern passport that suits your biological sex from birth, based on confirming documents and our entries regarding previous passports.”

Although the State Department did not issue more detailed tips on people who used the form with the marking X, Laurie Lee, co -founder Swift Passport & Visa Services In Chicago he said that their applications would most likely be suspended.

“I guess they make people who are caught in the middle, repeat the application and mean” a man “or” woman “, and then after submitting a modern application will receive a modern passport,” Lee said. “I don’t hope that they will issue a passport with” X “at the moment.

What happens if you submitted a passport with a marker that differs from delivery sex?

Although the State Department said that he would only publish “passports with a marker sex M or F, which suits the biological sex of the client from birth”, the enforcement of this policy was misleading and inconsistent.

Some Trans People applications seem to be caught in the suspension STATUS checking site of the State Department. 26 -year -old Westley Ebling said he had to contact his Congressmenka, Eleanor Holmes Norton in Washington to get all information about the renewal of the passport he presented on January 14.

Mrs. Norton’s office told him that applications with sex changes were suspended for an indefinite period, adding “that the State Department would not be able to provide more information only at the end of March and even later.” (Spokesman for the State Department refused to comment, citing privacy and restrictions.)

There are different, like Mrs. Schafer, who have already received modern passports, which have been returned to delivery sex.

Lily Powers, a 29-year-old Trans-Kobieta in Up-to-date York, changed her gender marker from M to X at the beginning of 2024. After she received sex confirming surgery in October last year, she thought that it would be reasonable to correct this tag to F to match the driving license. Submitted an application on January 8.

However, when she received a modern passport on February 4, M.

“It was an empty envelope with a modern document,” said Mrs. Powers. “There was no explanation why they gave me a M tag instead of what I asked for.”

What are the risk of traveling with a passport that has an incorrect gender marker?

People who travel with passports that do not reflect their current appearance, legal name and sex, often meet situations from uncomfortable to humiliating or threatening.

“In the case of transsexual and optional travelers, there is now this extremely elevated and very well -established fear that we can be questioned, detained, confiscated documents, only because of who we are,” said Arli Christian, senior ACLU policy advisor

In her film, Mrs. Schafer expressed similar fears. She said that this week she would travel abroad of her modern passport and preparing for complications.

“I am almost sure that this will happen with the necessity of going to the border patrol agents,” she said – “much more often than I would like or is really necessary.”

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