Rubio instructs staff to freeze passport applications with ‘X’ sex markers
Rubio instructs staff to freeze passport applications with ‘X’ sex markers
Secretary of state instructs staff to implement strict new guidelines following Trump executive order on gender
Religious people and fascists share a very unhealthy obsession with the contents of other people's pants.
Organized religion is a cancer now, maybe it had a purpose a thousand years ago, but now it's long overstayed its welcome
State department staff on Thursday were ordered to “suspend any application requesting an X sex marker” and to “suspend any application where the applicant is seeking to change their sex marker” from the definition provided in the executive order. The policy affects both current and future passport applications.
So not just X markers. Any and all marker changes. Immediate erasure. I weep for my community.
The decision to prevent them from leaving the United States is pretty interesting.
It could just be coincidence, that this is something Rubio is in charge of and he wants to punish transgender people in some random way, and this was what it happened to be. But it is a particular and notable way.
I don't quite understand why identity documents need a gender marker at all anymore. Maybe it was useful in the days before photo ID, but what purpose does it serve now?
What the hell is X marker?
In the space where you can write "M" or "F", an "X" would indicate something else. Could be a lot of things, or simply "I prefer not to answer." I don't really see how it's necessary information, considering the border agents have never once looked at my penis even if you ask em to.
Did you really think sex was binary? "Male" and "female" are just two ends of a bimodal distribution. But about 1% of the population has some form of intersex condition. The X market is for intersex people and those who identity with a nonbinary gender.
That might all be true but it is still rather stupid to refer to it as
'X' sex markers
in a headline rather than something more descriptive of the actual meaning, not the implementation detail of passport forms considering a lot of people are either not in the US (such as the Guardian writing this) or have never needed to apply for a passport.