US government threatens to ‘invalidate’ trans people’s passports under new policy

The US State Department has updated its FAQ page with a section that refers to them having the ability to ‘invalidate’ trans people’s passports, after the Supreme Court allowed it to enact a ban on changing gender markers.

Supreme Court justices granted an emergency stay to the Trump administration to prevent trans people from using the correct gender markers on passports in a 6 to 3 ruling last week.

In the wake of the ruling, the State Department has said that it will no longer issue passports with a gender-neutral ‘X’ marker, and has also added a sentence to its FAQs that appears to suggest an intention to rescind and invalidate trans people’s current, in-date passports.

A State Department’s webpage on sex markers in passports, discovered by the Substack page Transitics, has been updated to say that, under an executive order from US president Donald Trump, it will no longer issue US passports or Consular Reports of Birth Abroad with an X marker or markers that do not match a person’s “biological sex at birth.”

“If you submit a passport application requesting an ‘X’ marker or requesting a sex marker that differs from the sex marker at your birth, you may experience delays getting your passport,” it reads. “We will issue you a new passport that matches your biological sex at birth, based on your supporting documents and our records about your previous passports.”

Transatics writer Alexandra notes that the State Department’s page on sex markers initially displayed a message saying its policies on gender markers would be updated in accordance with the ruling.

All previous advice on changing gender markers has been removed and replaced with an FAQs section saying that passports with ‘X’ markers would be “valid for travel until its date of expiration, until you replace it, or until we invalidate it under federal regulations.”

Activists have warned that language leaves open the possibility the department could invalidate or reissue some previously updated passports in future, although the agency has not said it is immediately rescinding passports en masse.

In October, US airlines were ordered to ignore ‘X’ gender markers on passports under a policy from the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Department.

The White House said the move would not invalidate previously issued passports, but if government-issued IDs needed to be renewed, they must reflect the holder’s biological sex at birth.

Another FAQ entry, this time on birth certificates says: “We will request that you submit certain documents and records to help us establish your biological sex for your new passport.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissenting, said the Supreme Court’s recent emergency stay that allowed the Trump administration to continue its anti-trans passport policy was a “pointless but painful perversion” and has “paved the way for the immediate infliction of injury without adequate (or, really, any) justification.”

“Such senseless sidestepping of the obvious equitable outcome has become an unfortunate pattern,” she said. “So, too, has my own refusal to look the other way when basic principles are selectively discarded.”

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