‘I don’t feel safe’: Trump’s passport gender policy sparks fear for trans travel

[Jessica_Rose]

'I don't feel safe': Trump's passport gender policy sparks fear for trans travelers

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/i-don-t-feel-safe-trump-s-passport-gender-policy-sparks-fear-for-trans-travelers/ar-AA1ABq3t?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=25739c4f11f745b3aef79e53f82c5fe3&ei=9

Story by Hannah Sampson (10 March 2025)

Westley Ebling and his partner gave each other the same gift for Christmas: the promise of a trip to Mexico City this fall.

The trip would have capped years of effort to get where Ebling is now, at 26: living as a transmasculine nonbinary person with all his legal documents in alignment. Except the one that he says would allow him to travel freely.

Ebling, who lives in Washington, applied to update his passport with a male gender marker in mid-January, before President Donald Trump took office. The application arrived at the State Department after Trump signed an executive order reversing policies that allowed transgender, nonbinary and intersex people to mark their gender as "X" or to select the gender marker of their choice without providing medical documents.

For weeks, it was stuck in what Ebling described as "passport purgatory," despite his payment for expedited service.

Ebling's concerns are shared across a larger community of travelers who are reconsidering wedding plans, family visits, medical appointments and other trips. For travelers caught up in the Trump administration's new policy on passports, leaving the country has become difficult or impossible. Some Americans are in limbo, waiting for word on their passports' statuses after applying for updates. Others are in shock after receiving passports that misgender them.