Biden administration changes gender identity policies for visa, passport applicants

U.S. passport and visa applications will now include a gender identity other than male or female, two departments in the Biden administration announced Friday.

The Department of Homeland Security says visa applicants will now be permitted use the gender marker “X” to identify as something other than male or female.

The Department of the State released a similar announcement, saying U.S. Passport applications will also include the “X” gender marker. Starting April 11, applicants can also self-identify as any gender, “even if their selected gender differed from their other citizenship or identity documents.”

The new Biden administration policies were announced on the newly established “Trans Day of Visibility,” despite the president being criticized for telling jokes before a press conference on the Covenant School shooting in Nashville, where a transgender person killed six people, including 3 children.

In a statement Friday, Biden decried legislative efforts to protect children from gender-mutilating procedures as the work of “MAGA extremists.”

“Transgender Americans deserve to be safe and supported in every community – but today, across our country, MAGA extremists are advancing hundreds of hateful and extreme state laws that target transgender kids and their families,” the statement read.

The moves come after the “The Trans Radical Activist Network” shared a poster on Facebook calling for a “Trans Day of Vengeance.” The group tried to organize a protest outside the Supreme Court regarding recent bills limiting so-called “gender affirming” healthcare.

However, Twitter removed thousands of posts that included the poster last week.

“We do not support tweets that incite violence irrespective of who posts them. ‘Vengeance’ does not imply peaceful protest,” Ella Irwin, Twitter’s head of trust and safety tweeted.

Correct. We had to automatically sweep our platform and remove >5000 tweets /retweets of this poster. We do not support tweets that incite violence irrespective of who posts them. "Vengeance" does not imply peaceful protest. Organizing or support for peaceful protests is ok

— Ella Irwin (@ellagirwin) March 28, 2023

The Trans Radical Activist Network’s call for “vengeance” and “more than visibility” hit a sour note among many after the recent Nashville tragedy.

The protest was eventually canceled.