Secretary of State Marco Rubio bans passports with ‘X’ gender markers after Trump order: report

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has scrapped US passport applications allowing Americans to designate their gender identity as “X” after President Trump issued an executive order Monday that it is now “the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female.”

State Department staff were informed of the change in an internal cable sent Thursday mandating “sex, and not gender, shall be used” in official documents like passports and birth records in US embassies and consulates abroad, The Guardian reported.

Staff were specifically instructed to “suspend any application requesting an X sex marker” and to “suspend any application where the applicant is seeking to change their sex marker.”

Passports already issued will not be recalled, but applicants will not be able to choose the “X” designation when renewing their travel documents.

Rubio’s cable added that “guidance on existing passports containing an X sex marker will come via other channels.”

Trump’s order stated that “sexes are not changeable” and that the term only refers “to an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female. “

“‘Sex’ is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of ‘gender identity,’” it also read.

Under former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, passports with the “X” gender marker, which Blinken said would include “unspecified or another gender identity,” were rolled out on April 11, 2022.

“The Department is setting a precedent as the first federal government agency to offer the X gender marker on an identity document,” Blinken said in March of that year, hailing the move as a “milestone” in efforts to “better serve all US citizens, regardless of their gender identity.” 

Non-binary, intersex and other gender non-conforming Americans were able afterward to use the marker — or change their existing status — without providing further documentation.

Other agencies like US Citizenship and Immigration Services also offered “X” options for gender-nonconforming Americans.

Reps for the State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.