19
votes
You can join thousands telling US President Donald Trump what they think of his anti-trans passport policies. Here’s how.
Link information
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- Authors
- Samantha Riedel, Nico Lang, James Factora, Abby Monteil, Candice Norwood, The 19th, Barbara Rodriguez and Kate Sosin, The 19th
- Published
- Mar 14 2025
- Word count
- 489 words
I haven't actually posted a topic before, so hopefully I haven't missed anything major. That said, I just realized that nothing about this public comment period may have been posted on Tildes and the comments close tomorrow (Monday, March 18th.)
Personally, I have several friends who would be potentially impacted and endangered by this administration's attacks on their ability to get a passport that properly represents them. All of this is coming on the heels of reports earlier this year that the State Department was holding on to trans people's passports and refusing to issue passports, even with the original gender marker.
The ACLU has some text already written and a form for online submission.
You can apparently also directly submit comments anonymously, although I'm not clear on the specifics of how:
The federal register page the ACLU links to has a comment button, which in turn has an anonymous option.
As a bit of a warning to people thinking of submitting comments: public comments in the US like these are very public, if you don't make them anonymously. Your information will be available to the public. You can expect that the data will be harvested.
All the more reason I probably should comment.
Gotta use this privilege for something. Might as well be for good* causes.
*Said food, wish this was food. Also I commented.
I appreciate this, I'm not sure I'm in a headspace to leave a useful comment and keep my NSA agent bored. Thanks for posting
As of right now trans people are reporting that they are having their passports withheld when they try to make any changes or renewal. So it's not that simple. They just can't get one at all. (Assuming they could afford to leave the country or would be allowed to if things turned south)
And I do have friends that have changed their IDs back to the wrong gender marker, but it's still not that simple.
An ID with the wrong gender marker on it can out you to every single cop, liquor store attendant, gate agent, bank teller, and the receptionist at the doctor's office. It makes trans folks lives less safe and more prone to harassment and violence. It increase the likelihood of deadnaming and misgendering, things known to increase the risks of suicide.
So yeah it's important to have ID, but it costs a lot more.
The current risk is people who have already changed their gender on their documents being unable to renew their passports (which is currently verifiably the case fwiw) and having their passports confiscated by the US border control when travelling with it. I live in Germany and while my passport still has my gender as assigned at birth, I have several friends here (fellow trans Americans) who may miss funerals and other major family events because they cannot safely travel to and from the US without risking their passport being confiscated.