California still allows people to change their gender marker or use “X” on state-issued documents like their birth certificate or their driver’s license.
Levy, who specializes in name and gender marker changes through their nonprofit Identity Affirmation Workshop, said they’ve seen clientele increase “pretty significantly” since the November election.
“People saw the writing on the wall,” said Levy, who has been hosting free gender marker and name change clinics with other LGBTQ+ organizations, including the Oakland LGBTQ Center. “The whole process can be really daunting,” they said.
But what does changing your name or gender marker on official government documents now entail? KQED spoke to Levy about what trans, intersex and nonbinary people can expect during the lengthy process.
Please bear in mind that this is not legal advice, and it’s always a good idea to talk to an expert about your individual situation before taking concrete action — especially because current events may have superseded some information online. Jump straight to: Organizations and resources offering advice about documentation changes for trans folks.
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What’s the current situation for trans people’s U.S. passports?
Back in June, the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts ruled that the State Department “must allow people with a gender identity different from their sex assigned at birth to self-select the sex designation on their passport,” leaving a brief window of time in which trans Americans could update or renew their documents accordingly.
But that window is closed once again. Following the Supreme Court’s decision on Nov. 6, all new, renewed and replacement passports will now use the gender marker assigned at birth — and the ‘X’ gender option is no longer available.
While there’s still another decision to come from the First Circuit Court of Appeals left, which could lead to another brief window in which trans people can once again adjust their gender markers, this timeline is “really hard to predict,” Levy said.
“My advice remains the same: that it is better to have a passport with the wrong gender marker on it than it is to have no passport at all,” they said.
In addition to the confusion and anxiety caused by the frequent policy changes, the situation remains “demoralizing” for many trans, intersex, and gender non-conforming people across the country, Levy said — people who were already reeling from the Trump administration’s January executive order affecting their passports.
A 24-year-old trans man told NPR in February that after filing paperwork to change his gender marker to male on his passport before Trump’s inauguration, he received a passport marking him as female. Euphoria actor Hunter Schafer detailed on TikTok how her new passport lists her as male, despite having female on her government documents since she was a teenager.
“I’m just sort of scared of the way this stuff slowly gets implemented,” Schafer said in her social post, explaining her concerns about possibly being forced to out herself in front of a border patrol agent.
“We are never going to stop existing. I’m never going to stop being trans,” Schafer said in her February video. “A letter and a passport can’t change that.”
“There’s really no purpose for policies like this one, apart from making the people it affects’ lives miserable,” Levy said.
Can people who have changed their gender marker or have “X” still use their passports to travel?
The U.S. State Department’s site said that a passport with an “X” marker or that “lists a sex other than [your] sex as defined by the White House executive order” will “remain valid until its expiration date,” and that you can still use it to travel in and out of the U.S.
Acknowledging the anxiety some may have around traveling these passports, Lambda Legal, an organization serving LGBTQ+ people, said it’s not aware of any confirmed incidents “where individuals have faced problems leaving or reentering the United States using an unexpired passport issued prior to the 2025 policy changes — including those with an X gender marker.”
“There have also been no verified reports of passports being confiscated upon reentry,” the group’s website reads.
However, stressed Lambda Legal, travelers should weigh their personal circumstances, “including how you use your passport, your plans for international travel, and your individual safety needs and risk tolerance.”
Which documents can I change my name and/or gender markers on?
There is no one universal application where you can change your name or gender marker for all of your documents and changing one does not prompt another document to change. You have to do it “manually 100% of the time,” Levy said.
Levy said the four major documents people have historically wanted to change to reflect an update to their name or gender identity are:
Federal:
State:
California, along with several other states, still allows people to change their gender marker or use “X” on state-issued documents like their birth certificate or driver’s license.
