Trans actress Hunter Schafer revealed her passport now says she's 'male' after Donald Trump's controversial executive order defining a person’s gender as either male or female based on what was assigned at birth. During his inauguration speech, convicted felon and US President Trump announced that under his leadership, the US Government would only recognise two genders - male and female - and that he would strip trans people of their legal protections in one of his first acts.
This means the Government will not allow nonbinary and intersex people - who are born neither male nor female - to have their identities reflected on their passports and other official documents. In a new eight-minute long video, transgender actress and model Hunter - known for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes - revealed her new passport now has 'M' under the gender marker.
Speaking to her fans, the Euphoria star said: "I don't really post much these days but I had a little bit of a harsh reality check today and felt like it was important to share with whoever's listening. So I think most of us remember that on the first day of Trump's presidency he signed an executive order to declare only two genders, male and female assigned at birth.
"As a result of this, the Bureau of Consular Affairs has frozen passport applications requesting a gender marker change or renewals or new applications with a gender marker deferring from an applicant's gender assigned at birth. My initial reaction to this, because our President is a lot of talk, I thought I'll believe it when I see it and today I saw it on my new passport.".
"Male, so... Now, to specify my gender markers were first changed in my teens when I first go my driver's licence and then passport following all have been female since then. It hasn't really been a problem." She revealed she had to get a new passport as her old one was stolen from a car when she was filming in Barcelona.
Hunter said in her TikTok video that she filled out the passport application form 'like she normally would', putting female. But when she picked it up, they "changed the marker to male". She added: “This has led me to believe that, I think, the agencies who are in charge of passports and this sort of thing are now required to cross reference certificates. I don’t know exactly what changed, as far as the processing goes, but this is the first time this has happened to me since I changed my gender marker. We’re coming up on a decade now or something, and I do believe it is a direct result of the administration our country is currently operating under.”.
The model said she wasn't sharing her experience to "fear monger, or create drama, or receive consolation" but to share the realities trans people are facing in America - especially those who don’t check the boxes of being a “celebrity trans woman who is white and thin and can adhere to contemporary beauty standards.”.
Hunter said: "I’m just sort of scared of the way this stuff slowly gets implemented because things just sort of start happening as we’ve seen in historical rises of fascism and everything that this new administration kind of represents. There’s a lot of talk, and then things start happening, and we start to normalise the circumstances we’re under.
"And I just feel like it’s important to share that it’s not just talk, that this is real and it’s happening and no one, no matter their circumstance — no matter how wealthy or white or pretty or whatever — is excluded. This is real.” showbShe hasn't used her new passport yet but is going to have to "out myself to border patrol agents and that whole gig much more often than I would like to, or is really necessary" when she starts travelling again.
“I also want to say I don’t give a f**k that they put an M on my passport," she said. "It doesn’t change really anything about me or my transness. However, it does make life a little harder. And thinking about other trans women who this might also be happening to, or other trans people, the list only gets longer, as far as the intricacies that come along with the difficulty that this brings into real life shit.”.
Concluding her video, the star told fans: “Trans people are beautiful. We are never going to stop existing. I’m never going to stop being trans. A letter on a passport can’t change that. F**k this administration. I don’t really have an answer on what to do about this, but I feel it was important to share. This is real.”.
