Any reason not to get X as a gender marker on a US passport?

October 7, 2022 6:11 PM

Is there any reason for a nonbinary person to NOT get "x" as their gender on their US passport? The person can pass for the gender they were assigned as birth, if necessary, but obviously that's not ideal. So far their only planned travel on this passport is Japan and Canada, but let's presume they're going to want to see more of the world.
posted by The corpse in the library to Law & Government (18 answers total)

Some reasons that I personally am wary of this:

• It means that you are now on a government list of trans people, which could be bad if the USA ends up going the fascist route
• It seems likely to make travel to some countries more difficult (I've heard people specifically raise this concern about Saudi Arabia and Russia, but I'm sure those aren't the only two. Not places I'm likely to want to go, but I do prefer keeping my options open)
• It seems likely to cause more hassle from the TSA

Some people decide that these things are worth it, but everyone I know with a X gender marker on their documents is aware of these potential problems.
posted by wesleyac at 6:37 PM on October 7, 2022 [14 favorites]

I would presume there are some countries that won't deal well with that. I don't know if the person ever wants to go to any of them, but that'd be my #1 concern.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:37 PM on October 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

Well, somebody has to go first but having entered 25 different countries over many years I have learned to stay as inconspicuous as possible during the immigration process. I expect they'll be able to get into any major country but I would also expect some hassle when the local immigration systems aren't up to the challenge of X as a gender.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:41 PM on October 7, 2022 [15 favorites]

A passport isn't for you. It's for the places that demand you have one. Some places, or even some customs officials, can make it hell for such complications, and effectively offer no recourse. Avoid making it more complicated than it needs to be, if at all possible.
posted by 2N2222 at 6:55 PM on October 7, 2022 [42 favorites]

I agree with 2N2222. It may feel like a good place to take a stand, but bear in mind that this not going to work to their advantage anywhere. It will either be neutral or a detriment to their freedom of movement, dignity, and privacy.

In a better world, this would be a non-issue. But we aren't there yet and there are real and unpleasant consequences to these choices. Maybe they are willing to be the front line in this fight, and if so, I commend them with every ounce of luck and blessing I have to give. But if they want a more gentle traveling experience, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to want, I'm not sure if this is the path to get there.
posted by ananci at 7:09 PM on October 7, 2022 [6 favorites]

This list of countries that legally recognize non-binary may be of interest, particularly in that Japan is not on the list. That won't necessarily be an issue at the border but some hotels, all onsens, and even some subway cars in Tokyo are gender separated. Just potential for more complications.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:15 PM on October 7, 2022 [6 favorites]

An Australian woman says the US border agency told her that asking travellers about terminating a pregnancy is in line with their policies after she was detained at an airport and then deported.

Madolline Gourley says she was asked whether she’d had an abortion while detained at Los Angeles airport in June. It came days after Roe v Wade – the landmark court case that legalised abortion – was overturned in the United States.

Gourley says she was en route to Canada when she was held in a detention room, interrogated twice, patted down, fingerprinted, photographed and then deported during a stopover in the US.

She was detained over suspicions regarding her intention to house and cat sit during her holiday.

Following a Guardian Australia report on her experience, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reportedly launched an investigation into the matter. Two months later, Gourley was told asking travellers about “termination of pregnancy” was part of their official policies.

She says a special agent within the office of professional responsibility told her a week ago the questions she was asked were in line with the policies and procedures related to travellers in CBP custody.

The United States did this.

I think minimizing your attack surface while traveling is the only reasonable course of action for the foreseeable future,
posted by jamjam at 8:18 PM on October 7, 2022 [11 favorites]

I never give a cop an extra reason to fuck with me.
posted by potrzebie at 9:02 PM on October 7, 2022 [31 favorites]

I once met someone at a small country's border crossing who had been stuck there all day only because his surname had an accented character in it, and the border authorities of that country were uncertain and inconsistent about how to handle that character (and had run into difficulties with their software). Even in the absence of any potential ill-will from anyone, it's an advantage to have as normal and simple-to-process a passport as possible.
posted by kickingtheground at 9:20 PM on October 7, 2022 [9 favorites]

As a non-binary person with an X passport, I'd say the only negative thus far has been that it's now extra annoying that, despite having an accurate birth certificate and now passport, my state still makes me choose M or F. Maybe TSA has occasionally taken an extra beat to examine it/me? But if so, they're probably the only ones who actually noticed.

I realize the question is about downsides, but regarding the point that a passport isn't for oneself: considering the situation with my state, I did get it for me, so that I can show a legal ID to fly domestically or buy alcohol or open an account without misgendering myself. I know I just said nobody else much seems to notice, but I always did. If that means I'm limited in where I can travel, well, it's not like those were ever actually safe places for me to go, just ones where I could have probably gotten away with pretending to be someone different.
posted by teremala at 9:41 PM on October 7, 2022 [19 favorites]

There is no such thing as a decent border control person, regardless of their nationality.

They are all utterly terrible, even if they are perfectly polite when faced with a cis-het person of an "appropriate" ethnicity.

Proceed accordingly.

[I'm not kidding; nordic places you probably think are "cool" have assailed me and my family for being suspected criminals because, y'know, we might be slightly the wrong color, with names that are more complicated than "Bob" and such, so jesus christ we need to question them thoroughly because they cannot possibly be from Canada, they're too brown, there must be drugs! or guns! or guns and also drugs! Maybe they have drugs which are guns, and guns which are also drugs!]

Choose the lowest-risk option, regardless of whether that matches your lived experience. IMO.
posted by aramaic at 10:27 PM on October 7, 2022 [8 favorites]

In my experience most immigration people are not innately evil, but the bureaucracy they work for requires it of them.

For example, the entry officer who disappeared for fifteen minutes with my passport and temporary resident card last Sunday was honest and told me exactly how close I had come to losing all progress on my residency due to a mistake on her part. I think she would have been quite sorry for delaying my permanent residency by four years because she looked at the wrong page in my passport.

But that's immigration all over. Tiny issue for the officer, huge consequences for you.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:38 AM on October 8, 2022

Heaven forbid someone needs you to meet them in one of those far-flung countries, or your airplane is diverted, etc. Plan according to the worst-case scenario.
I would make less reason for delay on an official document.
posted by TrishaU at 6:21 PM on October 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

I think it comes down to this: is this person willing to be part of the vanguard leading the change even if it comes at some risk or would you prefer to quietly be part of the privileged herd? That comes across a lot sassier than intended but you know what I mean, no judgment.

With all due respect to the many non-binary and/or activists in more conservative-to-oppressive places like Russia and Saudi Arabia, life in these places is very hard for openly queer folks. Tourists from the US have a lot of grace although more scrutiny in other ways too. If you think someone non-binary can sidestep most hassle in these conservative places simply by relying on passing privilege in their passport, then I think it's a bit naive. But at the end of the day it's everyone's choice and there's no right or wrong answer for you and your wellbeing.
posted by smorgasbord at 7:03 PM on October 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

I have chosen not to do this despite greatly preferring such a marker for several reasons. Actually, the political ones are low on my list although real. I am more annoyed at the minot inconveniences. The airlines do not accommodate X markers in general. Having your passport not match your other documentation can be a pain in the butt.

Also: I have been an openly non binary person in countries where that could result in my imprisonment (admittedly as an American with the US government being aware of my presence there). Not having an X marker on my passport UNDOUBTEDLY made a difference to my personal safety. I still wouldn't go back and think I probably shouldn't have gone in the first place, but it helped.
posted by branca at 7:14 PM on October 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: > Having your passport not match your other documentation can be a pain in the butt.

This person (who is not me) is in the process of getting their birth certificate and state ID to have X as their gender markers, if that makes a difference.
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:21 PM on October 9, 2022

I think for a white, slim, nondisabled American person, then taking that passport X helps blaze a path for everyone else. But if the person or their dependents are at risk of being systemically targeted in any other way, it might come back to bite them.

Is the person planning to have children? Might their children look different from them (adoption, interracial marriage, some quirk of genetics), or might the children have some kind of life story that's unusual (not biologically related to one parent, nonspeaking, nontypical behaviour, don't look like a parent, might travel with a step-parent at some point, one parent dies and the other can't get travel permission, etc)?

If so, travel with those children will be scrutinized more heavily, and I wouldn't add any extra hurdles. No fun being detained with little ones in an unfamiliar and hostile place. Police keep records if they ever stop and investigate you, and if your ID is "weird" those records stick.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 2:45 PM on October 9, 2022 [2 favorites]

I would also consider that passports are used not just when traveling to a place but also sometimes when transiting through another place. Even if one never plans to visit any countries that are particularly hostile to trans people or rigid about the gender binary (more conservative countries separate routine security screening lines by sex, for example), there is some risk that one might need to travel through one.

Additionally - and I don't know how to say this nicely - in addition to transphobia, some people are just plain stupid. If they're not familiar with the X option, they might think it a sign of a fraudulent document. Here in DC the city changed our driver's licenses from "District of Columbia" to "Washington DC" because too many ID-takers didn't believe that they were real.
posted by mosst at 1:56 PM on October 10, 2022