Late last week, Euphoria star Hunter Schafer revealed that her renewed passport has been issued with a male gender marker.
U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 20 requiring the federal government to define sex as only male or female and saying that must be reflected on official documents, like passports. The State Department, responsible for passports, is no longer issuing passports with the “X” marker that had been available since 2021 and is not honouring requests to change gender markers between “M” and “F.”
Schafer, who came out as transgender in Grade 9 as a young teen, said her new United States passport lists her gender as male now and shared the details in an eight-and-a-half-minute video posted to TikTok on Saturday.
“I’m sure most of us remember on I think the first day of Trump’s presidency, he signed an executive order to declare only two genders recognized, male and female assigned at birth…. My initial reaction to this, because our president is a lot of talk, I was like, ‘I’ll believe it when I see it,” Schafer, 26, said. “And today I saw it on my new passport.”
She said the passport that was meant to carry her well into her 30s was stolen while she was filming in Spain. After receiving an emergency passport, she later had to apply for a new, permanent one in Los Angeles. Having had female gender markers on her licence and passport since she was a teenager, Schafer marked “female” on her application — but received a passport that identified her as male, she said. In the video, she said she had not had her birth certificate amended.
Schafer said she was making the video not to “fearmonger or create drama or receive consolation,” but to note the reality of the situation.
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“I was shocked because … I just didn’t think it was actually going to happen. I want to acknowledge my privilege, not only as a famous celebrity trans woman who is white and thin and can adhere to contemporary beauty standards and I can participate in all of that. I pass and it still happened,” she said in the video.
She said she believes the change of her gender marker on the new passport is “a direct result of the administration our country is currently operating under.”
“I guess I’m just sort of scared of the way this stuff slowly gets implemented,” the actor said.
“I also want to say, I don’t give a f–k that they put a M on my passport. It doesn’t change really anything about me or my transness, however, it does make life a little harder. Personally, I mean, I haven’t tested it out yet, I’ll found out next week when I have to travel abroad with my new passport, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to come along with having to out myself to border patrol agents and that whole gig much more often than I would like to or is really necessary.
“And this is just my personal circumstance, 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 s–t.
“Trans people are beautiful. We are never going to stop existing. I’m never going to stop being trans. A letter and a passport can’t change that. And 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,” she concluded.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the State Department said that “due to privacy laws and restrictions, we do not comment on specific cases.”
“The Department is implementing the President’s Executive Orders and executing on administration priorities,” the representative continued. “We are only issuing U.S. passports with a male or female sex marker that matches the applicant’s biological sex as defined in the Executive Order.”
Schafer has previously spoken out about facing transphobic barriers from the government. In 2016, she wrote an essay for Teen Vogue, titled How Transgender Teens Are Fighting Against Bathroom Laws. In the essay, Schafer wrote about the threat of a bathroom ban in her home state of North Carolina.
“Every time I use a public bathroom, I have to make a choice: Do I break the law, or do I disregard my comfort and face the risk of harassment and violence? As a 17-year-old transgender girl who began transitioning at 14, I’ve been wrestling with my gender ever since I was a child,” she wrote.
“At school, I’ve become accustomed to using the women’s restroom, where I feel safest and most comfortable. I’ve finally begun to accept myself as more than what is stated on my birth certificate. But a new law in my home state of North Carolina rejects all of this.
“House Bill 2, which passed in March, forces transgender people like me and thousands of others into bathrooms that are contrary to our gender identity. It’s a devastating piece of legislation that also banned anti-discrimination protections for the state’s entire LGBTQ community.”
Last year, Schafer spoke with GQ magazine about avoiding the word “trans” during interviews.
“It has not just happened naturally by any means. If I let it happen, it would still be giving ‘Transsexual Actress’ before every article ever,” Schafer explained.
“It took a while to learn that I don’t want to be [reduced to] that, and I find it ultimately demeaning to me and what I want to do. Especially after high school, I was sick of talking about it. I worked so hard to get to where I am, past these really hard points in my transition, and now I just want to be a girl and finally move on.”
—With files from The Associated Press
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