State Department to suspend passport applications seeking sex-marker changes after Trump order
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a memo reviewed by NBC News, said additional guidance would be issued on existing passports containing an “X” sex marker.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio directed the State Department on Wednesday to suspend all passport applications seeking to change a sex marker and all applications requesting an “X” sex marker, according to a memo reviewed by NBC News.
The memo references an executive order issued by President Trump hours after his inauguration, declaring that the U.S. government will recognize only two sexes, male and female, and that “these sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”
“The executive order specifies government-issued identification documents shall refer to an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female,” Rubio’s memo states. “In agency documents ‘sex’ and not ‘gender’ shall be used. Further, it is specified that the policy of the United States is that an individual’s sex is not changeable.”
As a result, the memo continues, the State Department will no longer issue “X” sex markers for U.S. passports or birth records for U.S. citizens with children born abroad. It directs employees to suspend all applications requesting an “X” sex marker or a sex marker change, adding that employees should “not take any further action” on those applications “pending additional guidance from the Department.”
The memo applies to all applications currently in progress and any future applications, the memo states, adding that guidance on existing passports containing an “X” sex marker “will come via other channels.”
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