The German Foreign Office has issued warnings to transgender and non-binomial citizens traveling to the United States.
The warning comes from a recent executive order from President Donald Trump, declaring that only passports with gender markers of male or female are accepted as valid. The order erases transgender identity from the law and refuses to acknowledge a person’s gender identity if it is different from the gender assigned at birth.
Under Trump’s order, the United States will recognize only two genders, male and female, based on biological characteristics at birth as a policy issue. It declares that gender cannot be altered by medical intervention.
Only female or male gender markers are accepted on a passport. This applies not only to US citizens, but to all visitors entering the US.
The German Foreign Ministry warned that anyone seeking a temporary visa must designate himself as a man or a woman in order to enter the country. He also advised people who have obtained a gender-neutral “X” marker on their passports, or those whose gender is different from the gender assigned at birth, to contact relevant US authorities and find all entry requirements before attempting to enter the US.
The warning comes after Secretary of State Marco Rubio issues an order requiring all visa applicants to list the genders assigned at birth.
The order was promoted as an effort to ensure that transgender female athletes traveling to the US for sports competitions cannot compete as women.
However, this policy applies to all transgender visa applicants, regardless of whether they plan to participate in sports competitions.
Under Rubio’s directive, visa applicants who do not match the sex assigned at birth will be permanently banned from the United States from the United States based on their committing identity fraud and misrepresenting who they are.
The State Department recently removed almost every mention of transgender identity from its own International Travel Advisory Page.
Currently, this page only contains advice for “LGB” people traveling abroad where homosexuality could be criminalised or where “going out” is considered socially taboo.
One reference to gender identity is indirect, simply advising travelers that many countries “have no IT systems in the entry port that can only recognize male and female sexual markers in their passports and accept other sexual markers.”
As Christopher Wiggins pointed out SupportersIn Germany, transgender and non-binary individuals can change their name and gender markers through notarized declarations. This makes it easy to obtain new birth certificates and identity documents that contain gender markers that reflect gender identity.
In comparison, in the United States, identity documents vary depending on the state in which the person lives.
The US State Department previously allowed some individuals to obtain non-binary or sexually neutral “X” markers in their passports, but that option is no longer offered.
An existing passport with an “X” marker – or gender markers that are different from the gender assigned to the person at birth will remain valid until it expires.
Source: Metro Weekly – www.metroweekly.com
