When Ash Lazarus Orr went to renew his passport in early January, transgender organizers thought it was relatively routine.
But now, more than two months later, ORR is waiting to get a new passport with a name change and sex designation that reflects who he is. This delay prevented him from traveling abroad to receive gender-affirming care in Ireland this month, as he refuses to obtain a passport listing “inaccurate sex designations.”
Orr blames President Donald Trump for delays. President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning the use of “X” markers and the changes to gender markers on the day he took office. This order says that a person is a man or a woman and rejects the idea that someone can transition from the gender assigned at birth to another gender.
“This prevents me from having accurate identification and freedom to move the country internationally,” Orr, among seven plaintiffs (five transgender Americans and two non-binary plaintiffs), said he sued the Trump administration in federal court over policy. “This has really, really been hindered by my life and my freedom… The government is questioning who I am as a trans person.”
The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the federal government on their behalf, and will compete in court in Boston on Tuesday, pending its policy while the lawsuit progresses in court.
The ACLU explained in the lawsuit how one woman returned her passport with a man’s designation, while the other women are too scared to submit their passports as their application has been suspended and fears of a passport held by the State Department. Another was mailed to her passport on January 9th, requesting a name change and changed her sexual designation from male to female. The person is still waiting for his passport. This means they can’t leave Canada where they live, and miss the family wedding in May and the botanical conference in July.
“Everyone faces prior abuse due to gender identity and fears that misspection of sex on their passports will cause further abuse, such as putting them in danger,” the ACLU writes.
Before he applied for a new passport, ORR was accused of using fake documents in early January while traveling from West Virginia to New York by US Transportation Security Control. That prompted him to request a male sexual designation renewed passport four days before Trump took office.
“We all have the right to ensure that our identity documents are accurate, and this policy leads to harassment, discrimination and violence against transgender Americans who can no longer obtain or renew a passport that matches who they are,” said ACLU lawyer Sruti Swaminathan.
In response to the lawsuit, the Trump administration argued that the change in passport policy “is not violating the constitution’s equal protection guarantee.” They also argue that the president has broad discretion in setting a passport policy, and that the plaintiffs will not harm this policy as they still have free travel to overseas travel.
“Some plaintiffs argue that having inconsistent identification increases the risk that officials will find themselves transgender,” the Justice Department wrote. “However, the department is not responsible for the plaintiff’s choice to change the sexual designation of state documents, but it is not a passport.”
After Trump’s executive order, the State Department quickly stopped issuing travel documents with the “X” gender markers preferred by many non-binary people, which are used by some intersex people who have sexual traits that fall outside the traditional definition of male or female, and that do not strictly identify them as male or female. The department also stopped allowing people to change the gender listed on their passports and get new ones that reflect the gender rather than the gender assigned at birth.
An application that had already been submitted to request a gender marker change has been put on hold. The State Department has also replaced the webpage with “LGBTQI+” traveler information with “LGB” and removed references to transgender or intersex people.
Passport policy is one of several actions Trump has taken since returning to the office that could potentially curb the rights and legal perceptions of transgender, intersex, and non-binary people.
The same orders that we try to define to rule out gender should be home to transgender women in prisons at men’s institutions. Additional orders will open the door to kick trans service members out of the military, provide gender-affirming care to transgender people under the age of 19, and prohibit transgender girls and women from girls and women’s sports competitions.
