Donald Trump orders gender-neutral passports sidelined as airlines told to choose male or female

Airlines are now required to disregard gender-neutral “X’’ sex markers on passports when passengers check in and replace them instead with an “M” for male, or an “F” for female, under a federal rule effective this month.

“X” markers have been available to US passport holders since 2022 to acknowledge the rights of people who do not identify as male or female. The third gender marker is used by nonbinary, intersex and gender-nonconforming individuals.

US Customs and Border Protection said its new rule was effective July 14 but allowed airlines a 90-day period during which markers other than “M” or “F” could be used.

That grace period has ended.

The new rule amounts to a data-collection change and does not affect passengers’ ability to fly.

The Advance Passenger Information System, which airlines use to submit passenger information to the government, asks airlines to submit a response of “M” or “F” in the gender field. The system no longer accepts “X.”

The rule affects international flights entering or leaving the United States, not domestic ones.

“If the travel document presented by a traveler for an international flight to or from the United States has a sex indicator other than ‘M’ or ‘F,’ or does not otherwise indicate the sex of the traveller, the carrier or the traveler should select either ‘M’ or ‘F,’” Customs and Border Protection said on its website.

Customs and Border Protection said in a statement Monday that foreign travellers with valid US travel documents, regardless of their gender marker, are being processed as usual.

The agency said that new or renewing Trusted Traveller Program enrollees will be required to choose male or female designations to complete their applications.

“An applicant’s choice of sex,” it said, “is not criteria for an applicant’s admission into the US”

Under Executive Order 14168, the Trump administration in January directed that passports reflect a person’s sex only as what was listed on their original birth certificate.

The US District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction against the government in June. The administration last month asked the Supreme Court to issue a stay against the injunction.

Passports held by travellers who use the “X” marker will remain valid until their expiration dates, the State Department said in a statement Monday, though it’s not clear what happens once those passports expire.

The department said this year that it would stop issuing passports with the gender-neutral X marker, which has been available since April 2022.

“US passport applicants must indicate on the passport application their binary, biological sex at birth, either male or female,” the statement said.

Airlines for America, a trade association that represents the country’s biggest airlines, said in a statement that its “member carriers comply with all federal rules, regulations and executive orders and are prepared to fully abide” by the new designations.

LGBTQ+ support groups said it’s too early to say how the new rule for airlines will play out for travellers who identify with the “X” marker.

“The purpose and effect of these policy changes are to cause panic and division,” said Andy Izenson, senior legal director for the Chosen Family Law Centre, a legal services and advocacy organisation.

“The practical impact on the day-to-day experience of individual transgender people trying to go through an airport is hard to predict at this stage,” they added, noting that it’s unclear which agency or groups will be enforcing the rule.

An online community that supports LGBTQ+ families, called Mama Bears, posted advice on its Facebook page: “Know that you have a right to travel — this is a data issue, not a ban.”

In the early 1990s, the State Department first allowed transgender people to change their sex marker if they provided evidence that they had undergone transition surgery.

In 2021, the State Department said that US passport applicants could self-select their gender and no longer had to submit any medical documentation, even if their selected gender differed from their identity documents.

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