The Guardian reports that the U.S. State Department has frozen all applications for passports with “X” sex markers and changes to gender identity on existing passports.
The move follows an executive order signed this week by President Donald Trump declaring there are only two “immutable biological classifications” – male and female.
The Guardian obtained a memo from newly-appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio instructing department staff to implement the new guidelines.
“The policy of the United States is that an individual’s sex is not changeable,” the email read, according to The Guardian.
In the memo, Rubio states that “sex, and not gender, shall be used” in official documents, including passports and consular reports of births abroad.
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 Trump’s executive order.
The policy affects both current and future passport applications, according to The Guardian.
Passports with the ‘X’ identification, which began being issued in 2022, are still valid, but Rubio said in his memo that guidance on existing passports is still to come.
Trump framed the executive order under the title “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”
