Issued U.S. passports with "X" gender designations will remain valid until expiration, although no more passports will be issued with that designation, according to guidance published recently by the U.S. State Department.
The gender option "X" for applicants who are non-binary, intersex and/or non-gender conforming, which the U.S. added in 2022, already had been removed as an option following an executive order from President Trump requiring passports to "accurately reflect the holder's sex," defining that as male and female only. The order did not clarify what that meant for already issued passports with the "X" gender marker, but the State Department this week said those passport holders do not need to get new passports until their current one expires. Upon renewal, however, they will receive a passport "with an M or F sex marker that [matches] the customer's biological sex at birth," according to the department.
The "at birth" designation also affects transgender passport holders, who previously had been able to receive passports that match their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth. The State Department's clarification said that passport holders with a sex marker that differs from their assigned sex at birth also could continue to use them until expiration, but new passports will match "your biological sex at birth, based on your supporting documents and our records about your previous passports." The department added that applicants requesting a sex marker that differs from their marker assigned at birth may be delayed or receive requests for more information.
On Feb. 7, seven people, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, filed a federal lawsuit in Massachusetts against the State Department and Trump for their inability to receive a passport that matches their gender identity, saying the policy is "motived by impermissible animus" and "wrongly seeks to erase the reality that transgender, intersex and nonbinary people exist today as they always have."