Just days after President Donald Trump took office for the second time, he signed an executive order making it US government policy to only recognise male and female sex. Quickly thereafter, the US State Department suspended the processing of passports for applicants who selected “X” as their preferred gender. Now, the State Department has also removed the letter “TQ” from its official travel website, which now reads, “LGB.”
“LGB travellers can face special challenges abroad. Laws and attitudes in some countries may affect safety and ease of travel,” the website reads, closely mirroring what it did just a few weeks ago, only this time, without the recognition of transgender and queer travellers. “Many countries do not recognise same-sex marriage. Many countries also only recognise the male and female sex markers in passports and do not have IT systems at ports of entry that can accept other sex markers. About 70 countries still consider consensual same-sex relations a crime. In some of these countries, individuals who engage in same-sex sexual relations may face severe punishment.”
Here’s how the changes will affect the LGBTQ community
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A laptop open with the official new "LGB" Travers information from the US Department of State
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The former US passport application with a gender X marker
What remains unclear — and unsettling — to transgender travellers is if the US will join the “many countries” the State Department says only recognise other sex markers.
“I recently had my passport change completed late last year and had my marker updated from male to female. With the removal of trans from the State Department website, it’s clear that they are trying all they can to erase the trans community,” Christina* shared with Travel + Leisure.
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“We have become the easy excuse for all of the problems in the nation, and it’s sad as some of the hardest working and intelligent people are transgender. We have a knack for being in highly technical fields such as IT. I cannot say for sure why that is, but I can only guess it’s due to our ability to research an issue as that’s our go-to when we try to find the inconsistency between mind and body.”
As Christina adds, the community, like other minority groups, has experienced this before, but this time, it feels much more “aggressive.”
“This time, it feels like the Republican party intends to find ways to make us leave the US for good, place us in prison, and erase us from history. My fear is that if I choose to use my US passport to leave the country, I will have no issues being received by other places, but I no longer know what will happen when I return.”
It’s a fear shared by Esther, a US-based traveller, who was travelling when all the changes took place and now had no idea how she’d be received. “I’m currently sitting in the airport waiting for my return flight,” she wrote in an email to T+L. “I left the country to attend my brother’s graduation from college two days after the inauguration. Given the stated intentions of the far-right Trump administration, I had suspected a passport policy like the one released was coming. I didn’t expect it to be on day one. I left the country not knowing if my passport would be impounded upon return.” (At the time of publication, Esther told T+L she made a safe return home.)
And while she did her best to try and tune out the news, like many transgender people, it’s simply not an option to be uninformed. “It’s hard to do so when policies that will affect my ability to live safely as who I am are (at both the state and federal level) changing literally every single day,” she said.
Travel should be a right for everyone, but the transgender travellers we spoke to have already proactively cancelled plans out of fear they may not be able to leave or return to the US. “We cancelled a planned April trip to South America because it was far enough out to cancel,” Charles shared. “I’ve heard that passports won’t be retroactively cancelled, but I can’t even imagine what would happen if Trump reverts my passport retroactively to F. I’m bald and have a beard.”
As Charles noted, many in the transgender community use their passport for more than travel. In fact, according to Charles, many use it primarily as an “identity document for work, especially those in red states who can’t get a corrected birth certificate or state ID.”
And though it’s not ideal, several travellers shared the same advice: get TSA precheck and Global Entry. This way, you avoid having to do pat-downs at security screenings and can simply scan your passport on re-entry.
Christine told T+L the changes to the website are concerning. “Being transgender comes with its own challenges when travelling. Not knowing what specifics I need to watch out for can place us in harm’s way if we land in the wrong country. This means the trans community now needs to crowd-source travel information, but even this takes more research and trial and error from the trans community.
Then, there’s the unknown of what happens should something go wrong internationally. “What happens if a trans person is detained in another country? The US government at the helm of the republican party has made it clear,” Christina said. “It does not care if trans people, citizens of the US, end up in harm’s way or detained in another country.”
“Honestly, I am just scared,” Christina added. “I am frozen, waiting until the next bad thing comes down the pipeline.”
*All names have been changed to protect our sources.
(Feature Image Credit: US Department of State)
This story first appeared on travelandleisure.com
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The information in this article is accurate as of the date of publication.
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