Trump order prevents transgender Minnesotans from changing identifiers on passports

U.S. passport offices in Minnesota are no longer allowing gender identifiers to be changed on federal travel documents, an immediate consequence of President Donald Trump’s recent executive order rolling back the rights of transgender people.

A transgender man from South St. Paul described his own experience in an interview with the Minnesota Star Tribune. The man was granted anonymity in response to his personal safety concerns. When he approached the counter to apply for a new passport last week in downtown Minneapolis, the man said, the clerk paused, then went back to his supervisor after noticing that the application requested a gender marker change. The 57-year-old had transitioned from female to male four years ago, he said, and needed to update his expired passport for an upcoming trip to Canada.

On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order that rolled back protections and considerations for transgender and nonbinary people in the United States, going so far as to say that genders “are not changeable.” A U.S. State Department spokesperson, in response to an inquiry from the Star Tribune, confirmed that it has suspended processing of applications for gender marker changes on passports.

The South St. Paul man said he was told that workers at the Minneapolis Passport Agency were instructed to hold onto and not process paperwork requesting a gender change. The man said he was also advised to not mail in his application because he may never get his paperwork or original passport back.

“He kind of looked both ways again and said, ‘I wouldn’t do that, because in all likelihood they’ll just be shredded and you won’t get your information back,’” the man recalled from his visit.

One section of Trump’s order, which went into effect the morning of Jan. 22, said the U.S. will only issue passports, visas and global entry cards that list the person’s gender they were assigned at birth. The order also prohibits transgender women from being held in women’s federal prisons, leading to outrage from LGBTQ organizations that say the order puts affected inmates in danger for their safety in an all-male facility.

Until now, Americans were able to submit paperwork to request a gender marker change on their passport. Starting in 2022 under a Biden administration initiative, citizens also could request an “X” marker if they did not identify as male or female. In Minnesota, residents can still apply for a driver’s license with an “X” marker or to switch between a male and female marker.

For those applying for passports or other federal identification, the “X” markers will no longer be offered, according to the State Department spokesperson.

“In line with that Order, the Department’s issuance of U.S. passports will reflect the individual’s biological sex as defined in the Executive Order,” the spokesperson said in the email.

Now, Minnesotans who submitted a request for a passport gender marker change are left in limbo about what will happen to their paperwork. The State’s Department spokesperson did not say whether applications will be denied or sent back with a different marker than what the transgender person requested.

The order states that it was created to oppose people who “deny the biological reality of sex” and have “increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women.” But advocates and leaders in the LGBTQ community say the order represents a dangerous attack on transgender people and wrongfully denies the right to identify in line with one’s lived experience.

Kat Rohn, the executive director of OutFront Minnesota, called the order “blatantly discriminatory.”

“Fundamentally, this was nothing more than political positioning to try and harm trans and gender-diverse Americans,” Rohn said. “I think it’s in the best interest of everybody, the government, and the public at large to have gender identity markers that match folks’ lived experience.”

The man who described his experience at the passport office said he fears that Trump’s presidency and orders such as this will increase discrimination and attacks against both gender nonconforming people as well as for immigrants and people of color.

“All of us who have been marginalized will not only continue to be marginalized, but hunted,” he said. “This is a scary time.”

The executive order conflicts with policies in Minnesota, which has written into law that gender identity may or may not correspond to someone’s assigned sex at birth. The state’s laws define gender identity as a person’s “inherent sense of being a man, woman, both, or neither.”

Gov. Tim Walz signed Democratic-backed laws in 2023 that protected the rights to abortion and health care for transgender and nonbinary people, embracing the state’s status as a “refuge” for people seeking those services. Many Republicans and conservatives opposed the laws and argued they would put children at risk.

Jonathan Burris, a longtime attorney in Minneapolis specializing in LGBT issues, said he has already received requests for assistance from families of transgender people who have legally changed their name at the state level but are now hesitant to apply for federal identification to represent their updated gender identity. Burris, 71, said he was planning on retiring in December but decided to continue his practice after learning that Trump would be re-elected.

“Some people go back to the brink of suicide with this type of action,” Burris said. “It’s so insensitive to me.”