Transgender people allowed to correct passports despite executive order

Transgender and nonbinary people are now allowed to receive passports matching their gender identity after an executive order from President Donald Trump previously forced binary gender markers.

Earlier this year, a federal judge blocked an effort by the Trump administration to keep the order in place while a civil rights lawsuit progressed. As of July 11, transgender people have been able to sign attestations that they have been harmed by the executive order and receive corrected documents while the case plays out.

For Lily Beinn, a transgender woman from Spokane, having a passport that matches her gender identity means having the freedom of movement without fear.

“The government makes it very clear they don’t want me here. Why would I want to raise my kids here?” Beinn said. “At this point for me, I just need a passport to eventually immigrate to another country.”

A federal lawsuit challenging the executive order was filed Feb. 7 in reaction to an executive order signed by Trump on Jan. 20. The order required the federal government to recognize only two genders, male and female.

“These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,” the order stated.

Following the executive order, many transgender people reported receiving new passports with gender markers not matching their identity.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit representing seven plaintiffs affected by the executive order, characterizing it as discriminatory and a violation of multiple rights.

“The lawsuit argues the policy is arbitrary and capricious, violates the right to travel and right to privacy under the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, and compels speech from transgender, nonbinary, and intersex passport holders in violation of their First Amendment rights,” the American Civil Liberties Union said on their website.

An injunction was issued on June 17 allowing transgender people to sign an attestation that identifies them as part of the class affected by the case and receive corrected documents while the case continues.

The State Department began complying with the court order July 1, but even then some people waited to file their forms as Trump’s defense filed a motion to dissolve and stay the injunction enforcing the executive order once again.

However, on July 11 that motion was denied, meaning transgender people could still file their forms.

Clarke Courchaine, a transgender man from Spokane, was upset with the executive order as he is getting married in a year and hopes to travel for his honeymoon.

“I feel like labeling me something that I am not, is my government putting me in harm’s way,” Courchaine said.

Because of the way the Transportation Security Administration’s body scanners work, if a traveler is identified as female but goes through the scanner with male genitalia, it can sometimes be marked as an anomaly. This can lead to a pat down and claims of discrimination or harassment.

In 2019 Courchaine was traveling to Disneyland with a group of classmates. Courchaine identified as nonbinary and had accidentally left their ID in their checked bag. While going through TSA, Courchaine was the only one who got frisked.

“They touched every part of my body,” Courchaine said. “It was embarrassing, it was mortifying, and I never felt so othered.”

The TSA website used to have a webpage called “gender-diversity” addressing the fears of travel for transgender people, but the page was removed sometime after Jan. 14, according to the Wayback Machine, a web archive site.

“TSA recognizes the concerns that some members of the transgender/non-binary/gender nonconforming traveling public have with screening technology and certain security screening procedures, and is committed to ensuring all passengers are treated with respect and dignity,” the webpage read. “Screening is conducted without regard to a person’s race, color, sex, gender, gender identity, national origin, religion or disability.”

That webpage has since been updated to remove mentions of transgender passengers.

“The advanced imaging technology used to screen passengers has software that looks at the anatomy of men and women differently,” the website now reads. “If there is an alarm, TSA officers are trained to clear the alarm, not the individual. This process ensures every individual is screened effectively according to procedures prior to entering the secured area of an airport. You may request private screening or to speak with a supervisor at any time during the screening process.”

Courchaine and Beinn both applied for new passports and are waiting to receive them. However, they both had a problem with the attestation form, which they saw as more paperwork slowing down the process and forcing transgender people to identify themselves to the government.

The attestation requires the applicant to state that their “gender identity is different from my sex” or that they’ve been diagnosed with “gender dysphoria.”

“It’s starting to kind of feel like we have to out ourselves just to exist,” Courchaine said.

Beinn and Courchaine also questioned the reason the U.S. needs gender markers on passports. The U.S. began requiring that inclusion on passports in 1977 as fashion trends at the time made it harder for officials to identify someone’s sex.

Noralis Rodriguez-Coss, an associate professor of gender studies at Gonzaga University, said the introduction of the gender marker shows a patriarchal society’s need to distinguish between two perceived genders despite the perception not always lining up with identity.

“Since then, it has become a way of imposing moral and social norms that tend to exclude people that do not fall into these two boxes, male and female,” Rodriguez-Coss said.

Rodriguez-Coss also said that gender markers aren’t a good form of identification and other identifiers such as names, facial recognition or addresses could be used instead.

“From my experience and my understanding of what gender is, it is not something that determines if I’m a good or bad person or who I am,” Rodriguez-Coss said. “It’s just the way that we make sense of femininity and masculinity, and that really doesn’t matter in order to travel or to have access to any of these that an ID will get us.”

With multiple executive orders from Trump targeting transgender people, Courchaine and Beinn said they were worried about what will happen next.

A Supreme Court decision upheld a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors. Transgender members of the military are currently undergoing separation because the Supreme Court allowed the ban to be enforced while other legal challenges are processed.

“They’re trying to erase us,” Courchaine said.

“They want to intimidate us,” Beinn added.

Despite the challenges, Courchaine and Beinn both agreed it was important they remain themselves.

“I’m definitely concerned, but I’m also emboldened more to be myself, because if we let these intimidation tactics work, there will be none of us. We’ll all go back into the closet, live miserable lives and have miserable families,” Courchaine said. “We’re in the age that we don’t have to do that anymore and we can choose our own best lives.”