Changes in Passport Guidelines for Trans and Non-Binary American Citizens

If you needed to obtain or renew a passport after January 20, 2025, and your gender identity is not traditional cis-gender male or female, you may have experienced the horror of being issued a passport that includes your legal name (that you may have changed to one you chose for yourself) and the incorrect gender identity under the category of sex. 

One of my relatives rationalized that trans and non-binary people with incorrect passports would still be free to leave the country...sure, but what would happen on their return? This was terrifying to contemplate. The ACLU jumped on this and the executive order that initiated the change in State Department practices has not passed muster with the courts...so far. (See the article here: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/appeals-court-denies-request-to-stay-order-preserving-passports-for-many-trans-nonbinary-intersex-citizens)

Given the stay, you can re-apply for your passport so it will correctly reflect your gender identity. If somehow the current administration attempts to push this to the Supreme Court, it's possible they could reverse the stay and uphold the executive order; until that time, however, at least you can have a passport that is accurate so that leaving the country and returning (hopefully) will not be fraught with anxiety over being stopped at the border on re-entry just so the current border control officers can mess with you if they feel like it, since that is the current flavor of many federal law enforcement officers, unfortunately.

The explanation can be found here on the State Department website:

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/passport-help/sex-marker.html

You will need to complete an attestation; you are attesting to the following:

And you'll need to complete an application and, of course, pay the fee. It sucks if your passport was just renewed, with the incorrect gender reflected, where you parted with a couple of hundred bucks, including shipping, and that you have to do it again. If you were my child, and you could swing the money, I'd suggest you get this done ASAP. 

The current climate in the USA is decidedly anti-LGBTQ+ and having a back-up plan for your own personal safety is not being paranoid. Not anymore.  If you have people you trust that can loan you the money until you can pay it back in 6-8 months, this might be a worthwhile time to break that unwritten rule of not borrowing (or lending) money through family. 

I'm grateful and DJ and Marie live in a progressive area and have resources. I know that isn't true for everyone. Be vigilant, be private, and be safe. In peace, the Author

The DJ Update

 Where to start? Well, how about with some breathtakingly happy news? DJ is engaged to be married next spring. Her beloved is a lovely and insanely intelligent woman who completely "gets" our girl- supports her and understands her. Bulldog and I marvel at how they are together. They both are devoted to music, science, building projects together, enjoying raves and electronica music, nature walks, and each other.

DJ and her beloved, who we'll call Marie, as in Marie Curie, because she is absolutely brilliantly intelligent, bought a house together right before they got engaged. It's a charming house surrounded by trees. It's minutes away from a lake. When I told her her lakeside neighborhood is everything I'd want to retire to, she looked momentarily horrified!! 

DJ and Marie have designated one of the bedroom solely for engaging in some of their hobbies that are centered around music. They both just finished building a sub-woofer that is larger than an end-table and looks like it came out of a comic book. They are definitely two peas in a pod.

DJ has always been a private person and as she matures, she's become more so. She's much smarter than her mother in that regard. My habit of being an open book, largely inspired by a need to be liked, has been a regret of mine as it has yielded some very unpleasant circumstances when I gave people my trust despite their not having earned it. She and Marie have small groups of friends with whom they spend time.

After DJ's gender confirmation surgery, she had a couple of medical hiccups that she managed well because she is committed to being well. We are grateful that she is in this happy place.

The wedding will have an enchanted forest feel to it which is perfect for our girl as she has a decided ethereal quality to her. She and Marie will be getting married here at our property at a really pretty spot along our tree line with our enormous pond in the background. Please put out good vibes for beautiful weather in the southeast for the end of April.

A lot has changed in the last 15 years for DJ. She has come a long way. Unfortunately, the USA is easily as frightening towards trans people as when DJ came out over 15 years ago. There was a sweet spot around 5-6 years ago where it appeared the tides were turning towards broader acceptance until 47's administration came to power. I strongly believe we are witnessing the death throes of an ideology centered around hate of others who are not exactly like the haters. People do desperate things when they sense they are losing and that is what we are living through now- their desperate attempts to hold on to power. We need to hold fast no matter what during these times. Stay abreast of what this administration is doing regarding executive orders. If you were issued a passport with the incorrect gender reflected on it, you can get one re-issued with the correct gender while the case continues to be adjudicated. So far, federal judges are NOT upholding the 2-gender executive order. Stay informed please and stay tuned...

Can you accept but not understand a trans person?

 If anyone is still reading this, or is new to this blog...I've been on a hiatus. If you've been a DJ follower and want to know how she's doing, I'll follow this post with a catch-up post regarding how our darling girl (now, a young woman) is doing.

I was at a beloved friend's 50th birthday party this weekend. We'll call her Tooth Fairy. Those who know her will get the reference right away. In this day and age where trans people and the people who love them are equally maligned, I'll keep her identity hidden. She has an aunt who has a child who is trans. Tooth Fairy's Aunt has 3 children- a set of twins and their sibling. One of the twins, presumed to be a girl, revealed that he is not an identical twin, but a fraternal twin.

Tooth Fairy's Aunt, struggled at first, like most parents will, and it appears that she fully supports her son. 

Everyone pause and applaud Tooth Fairy's Aunt. Send prayers her way too -for her and her son as she is a woman of strong faith and prayers will mean the world to her. 

Tooth Fairy's Aunt, who we'll just call "Aunt" for this post, is struggling, as I understand it, with the extended family's difficulty with accepting her son. I completely get it. That will bring out the Mother Bear in any woman. 

Tooth Fairy (and if you read this Tooth Fairy, you know how much I love you) has a heart of gold. She too is a woman of strong faith. While her faith informs much of her belief systems, she is not limited by them like so many are. Tooth Fairy has hoped Aunt would reach out to me for some support and I can understand why Aunt would not at a party. Tooth Fairy referred to the cousin by his female name assigned at birth and by the incorrect pronoun during our conversation; however, when I referred to her cousin as "he" and by his chosen name, she followed suit. (Applause for Tooth Fairy!) She brought up a point though that is thought provoking. She explained that she had said to Aunt that while they didn't understand Aunt's child being trans, they could still support Aunt and Aunt's son. Aunt wasn't accepting of this explanation.

It got me wondering...how much does one have to understand to offer true unconditional love? I'm not sure that how much one understands is important so much as how they try to demonstrate that they WANT to understand. Let's face it, I don't understand what it is to be a guy. I never will because I'm not a guy. I may have glimmers of understanding because I have some traits that may fall on the masculine side of the spectrum of gender, but largely, I have to imagine what it's like to be in someone else's stilettos, or boots, or any other shoe, to come close to understanding. That's the difference between empathy and sympathy. Empathy is, "I get what you're going through and I feel for you." Sympathy is, "I can only imagine what you're going through and I feel for you."

Is sympathy enough? Well....maybe, or maybe not. How vigilant is a person in demonstrating sympathy? If someone refers to a person by the gender and name that is NOT their identity, and does not recognize that they've done so or made an attempt to correct it, that may seem to the trans person, or his mom, that the family members really don't support the trans person.

Here's the thing- who we are is THE most important facet of our lives. Second to that is the body each of us must live in. Most of our waking hours will be spent in engaging others through the WHO we are; the majority of both our waking and sleeping hours will be comprised of the care, feeding, resting, restoring of our bodies. There is little else that any one of us will "own" outright and very little else that we have much control over. If I don't get to decide who I am and make decisions about my own body, what the hell else is there? Sure, the people we love but we love them through ourselves and our bodies are a reflection of ourselves. 

To answer the question posed here...yes, you can accept without understanding. But loving and making a concerted effort every day to try to understand is a higher calling. What does that look like? Committing first and foremost to calling the person by the name they chose and using the pronouns they request. Nobody, but nobody, gets to tell me who I am. I think we can all agree on that. Why that universally accepted rule stops with trans people is hard to defend. 

In the end, the hang-up is on the part of those who aren't meeting the needs of the trans person and the trans person's family. Substitute "cancer" for trans; substitute being born with a cleft palate for trans; substitute being born with internal reproductive organs and external genitalia that are unrecognizable for trans; substitute having variations in your DNA for trans- now, imagine that a family member had any of those conditions. How hard would it be to show love to the person all the time? When people struggle to show love and unyielding sympathy for the plight of the trans person who is living in a world that somehow thinks rigid gender roles are normal, then the problem is with the person having difficulty demonstrating love. I just spelled out a minimum of 4 health conditions all of which are real and merit sympathy- why is this medical condition different? Because somewhere we believe more in a handful of sentences in the Old Testament (much of which we ignore when it applies to us, i.e., how many of us eat shrimp or have clothing made of two different types of fibers? You are just as guilty of alleged "sin" according to the Old Testament as a trans person is and you can far more easily walk away from the shrimp or pick a different shirt to wear). 

Want to get rid of the hang up, or at least come across like you want to rid yourself of it until you actually do? Tell the trans person and the person's family you WANT to understand and you are committed to trying. Tell them that you WANT to use the correct name and pronoun and if you slip up, and don't realize you've slipped up, ask your trans relative to please (nicely) correct you. A great example of a similar conversation might go something like this:

                Cis-gendered person to trans person: Hey Amelia! How are you sweetie?

                Trans person to cis person: It's Andrew. I'm ok. How are you?

                Cis person: "Darn it!! I'm sorry Andrew! Thanks for the reminder. I'm doing ok."

Here's what that will do: that seemingly small correction BROADCASTS to your loved one that you really mean it when you say you want to accept and that you're trying to understand as much as you're able. I goofed with my kid and I definitely goofed with many many trans students I have encountered by accidentally using a prior name and incorrect pronoun. One person appeared more feminine facial features and based on that, I kept using the wrong pronoun. I would immediately correct myself and apologize. That genuine look-a-person-in-the-eye apology will carry the day almost all of the time. If it doesn't, well, trans people aren't perfect either; if the trans person doesn't accept your genuine apology, then clearly the hang up is now the trans person's.

Aunt, and Aunt's son, if you happen to be reading this, there are mothers all over the world who have walked in Aunt's shoes. Over 15 years ago my youngest "son" told me she was my daughter. It did not take that long before the entire family really got it but that's not to say the waiting was always easy. Bear in mind too that older people may struggle with getting the names and pronouns right simply because changing habits gets harder as we age, especially if the trans person came out after 15 -20 years. That's a lot of years of habit to undo. But give it time. Tell your family what you need from them. I know that Tooth Fairy would step in front of a truck for anyone she loves in a heartbeat. She's a safe person to tell if you think you need more from her. And Tooth Fairy is also a guiding light to others; when she talks, people listen. She's in your corner. If you need a woman who has literally walked in your shoes, ask Tooth Fairy for my contact information. I'm here for you.

Much love to all of you who are, who know and who love a trans or non-binary person. My daughter changed our entire family- immediate and extended- and made us all better for it. Love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love is loves love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love is loves love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love is loves love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love. Peace to you all- The Author