Trans People Being Denied Passports Until They Can Prove Their 'Biological Sex' at Birth

By Jane Migliara Brigham and Artemis T. Douglas

The State Department has denied a passport application to a trans woman because she did not provide evidence that she is applying as her assigned sex at birth.

Editor’s Note: This is a developing story and The Needle will update this article as new developments come in.

Today, on Blue Sky, a user who is a trans woman posted that her US passport application has been denied because she has not provided evidence that she is presenting as the sex that she was assigned at birth.  The fact that she is a trans woman is not a coincidence.

The email she received can be seen below. The woman who received this email provided a copy to The Needle and The Needle has verified it.

The email makes it explicit that additional documentation is being requested because the applicant is trying to obtain documents that reflect the sex that their body is now, rather than the sex they had at birth.  

It also appears to disregard the fact that she has had her name and sex legally changed.  The Needle spoke to her and confirmed this.  She also told The Needle that the legal records for this name change were legally sealed in the State of New York, the state where the change was granted.

This is her first time applying for a Unites States passport, meaning that the State Department is not supposed to have records of former documents on file.

It is unclear how the Passport Office knew to ask a trans woman for proof of her sex at birth when the legal records involved were sealed. As of writing, there is no indication that a similar level of scrutiny is being applied to cis people.

Furthermore, if the applicant is unable to provide such documents (and as a trans woman, she will be unable to), her passport application will be denied.

This means that it is now impossible for her to obtain an accurate passport. Denying passports has one purpose- to deny free movement into and out of the country.

In other words, there is no legal way for her to leave the country through legal channels. She is trapped within the United States.

The requests for documents pertaining to a person’s name and sex at birth are not consistent with any previously published State Department policy.  There has been no previous indication that any such documents are a requirement to obtain a passport.

As of today, Nov. 18, the State Department website claims that a physical birth certificate is the only needed documentation for U.S. citizenship, and that passports only need a birth certificate and proof of ID via a full driver’s license or state ID. This version of the website was last updated Sep. 4.

This is, in all likelihood, an attempt by the State Department to implement the White House’s Executive Order that the government is to accept only the sexes of male and female, and that these are to be considered as unchangeable categories.

The recent changes might also be informed by the recent Supreme Court injunction that affirmed the right of the state department to only issue passports that reflect the applicant’s sex at birth. This would explain the increase in enforcement of the Executive Order.

It should be emphasized that as of this article going live, the State Department policy was that all US passports are valid until they expire. However, just last week, the State Department website indicated that it reserved the right to revoke passports that it deemed to be granted under fraudulent circumstances.

Minutes after this story went live, the website reverted the advice back, once again stating that existing passports will be considered valid "until they are invalidated pursuant to federal regulations".

It is unclear which policy will be followed.

The same department has just contradicted its previous stated policy to apply heightened scrutiny to a trans woman; it is unclear whether or to what degree its statements can be trusted.

While this most directly and obviously affects trans people, it could also negatively impact cis women who have gotten married, or anyone else who’s had a legal name change for any reason.

At the same time, there is no indication that the same level of scrutiny has been applied to cis people, and it is unclear whether it will be applied to cis people.

The Needle reached out to the State Department for comment. At the time of publication, they have not yet responded to The Needle’s request for comment.