Hands Off Our Passports: Stop Attacking Transgender Americans

President Trump issued an executive order attempting to deny that trans, intersex, and nonbinary people exist, and denying them equal rights and treatment under the law. But trans people are our friends, our neighbors, our coworkers, and our family members. I do not support this type of discrimination in my country. State Department, I urge you not to take away the rights of trans, intersex, and nonbinary citizens to obtain a passport that reflects who they are – a right we’ve had here in the United States for over 30 years. Every citizen deserves a U.S. passport that matches who they are to ensure they can safely travel, obtain employment, interact with law enforcement, and go about their daily lives without fear of harassment, undue scrutiny, and discrimination. It is a burden on passport applicants to be asked for evidence of our biological sex at birth, and a waste of government time and resources to require State Department employees to research this information. It is none of the federal government’s business to track down these private details about us. We rely on our federal government to be thoughtful, well-reasoned, and fair to all Americans, yet this new policy provides no thought, reason, or fairness. Instead, it targets a small population of the United States and denies them identification documents they need to safely travel and go about their lives. Please reject this policy change and let transgender, intersex, and nonbinary Americans access accurate and useable passports that match who they are.