It’s interesting, but if this change had happened during the Biden or Obama administrations, I wouldn’t have been too worried because I would expect them to play fair. But these clowns, I don’t believe in their honorable intentions for a nanosecond. I think this is an opening gambit to something worse. It’s what Trump does.
This is the classic pattern of boiling the frog. Start with the most innocuous use case that all of us can agree seems on the surface to be a good thing – prevent deadbeat parents from skipping out on their kids – but gently introduce the idea into society that passports are a privilege that can be stripped for behavior.
The next step will be pretty innocuous, but slightly more alarming. And the the next step a little less innocuous, and a little more alarming. But hey, the genie is out of the bottle. no one made a big fuss when we did this with deadbeat fathers, so why not [other, politically convenient problematic group]?
And by the time you get to step 8 or 9, now oppressed groups trying to flee the country are stopped from doing so pretty much out of pure malice. Maybe as an intimidation tactic - comply with us. You don’t have the option to resist us and then run when we come for you.
Sex Marker in Passports
The White House issued Executive Order 14168 “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” on January 20, 2025.
Under the executive order, we no longer issue U.S. passports or Consular Reports of Birth Abroad (CRBAs) with an X marker. We only issue a passport with an M or F sex marker that matches the customer’s biological sex at birth.
On November 6, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the preliminary injunction issued in June by the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts in Orr v. Trump. As a result, we are only issuing passports reflecting sex at birth and will not honor attestations requesting a preferred sex marker.
If you submit a passport application requesting an X marker or requesting a sex marker that differs from the sex marker at your birth, you may experience delays getting your passport. You may receive a letter or email requesting more information. We will issue you a new passport that matches your biological sex at birth, based on your supporting documents and our records about your previous passports.
Like this?
Not at all.
Though as with all these things I’m still mad those democratic administrations for passing all this legislation (and letting it stand) that Trump is using to destroy America. This is a fairly minor example but its still obviously that this was open to abuse (and would undoubtedly lead to abuses, albeit relatively small ones to people who are not necessarily very nice or popular to stand up for). There are much more glaring examples, like all the laws around ICE and CBP none of which were Trump’s doing.
It’s very low down on my list of things to be mad about right now but it needs to be addressed if this nightmare ever ends.
I worked for the Office of Child Support Enforcement, and, yes, revoking or suspending someone’s passport was one of the options we could pursue to get someone to pay their arrears. It is also true that it affected very few of those who were supposed to pay child support. But it seemed that many of those who lost their passport called to report that they had just paid in full for a non-refundable cruise or vacation which required them to have a passport, and what could they do to get their passport restored? They only way to get their passport back was to pay their arrears in full. These were often considerable, because nobody gets their passport pulled after missing one or two months of child support. They would then try to bargain, offering to pay half or some other amount. It never worked. One other thing, the cruise or vacation was a gift. The deadbeat was not spending money on luxuries while blowing off child support.
When the custodial parent does not get paid the ordered child support, then they are very likely to end up on anti-poverty programs like Food Stamps, Medicaid, etc. These are mostly paid for by Federal funds, so this is a Federal issue.
When deadbeat parents don’t pay their child support, it falls to the taxpayers to support their kids.
Because of Trump administration cutbacks at the State Department, I wonder if their actual use of child support data to block issuance of or revoke passports will wind up being less than in the Biden years.
Sounds like a way to make it harder for yet another sector of poor people to meet the new voter ID requirements.
My sister, who is gender nonbinary and is leaving this month to live with her fiance in Mexico (and ultimately marry him down there, God willing) had to change the X on her passport to an F, and she was very upset.
This will not be enforced against anyone demonstrating loyalty to the Trump Cult. That’s how fascism works. The law only binds the out group, and the Constitution only protects the in group.
Tell that to Caitlyn Jenner.
“But THINK OF THE CHIIILLLDRENN…”
You can always count on the American legislator to pass and retain a law that can potentially be misused and abused in the name of protecting The Children, or to go after “bad people” who “don’t deserve” due process under normal laws. So you get this, or you get “Driver Monitoring” systems in cars, or FISA, or “Civil Forfeiture” or the for-generations authority of the various incarnations of Border Protection to just treat people like s–t with no apology, etc. etc.
Because nobody wants to be the one who “let them get away”.
I suppose with the passports law, for the longest time this must have been a particularly easy call because of the historic fact of a majority of Americans NOT getting passports, so it was understood that those affected would be among the privileged…
…or the entitled.
Someone should question her about her passport.
For those unfamiliar, she used to be Bruce Jenner, Olympic decathalon winner.
Don’t need to ask - YouTube is full of videos “quoting” her, including her own videos that she made, asking Trump to fix her passport problem. Seems when she renewed it the gender marker was switched back to “M” and she can’t get it changed back to “F”. Poor dear. Even after all that time she’s spent supporting Trump.
Personally, I find it pathetic. Hey, Caitlyn - you’re having the day you voted for.
It’s everyone else I feel sorry for.