On Friday, actress and model Hunter Schafer posted an eight-and-a-half minute video on TikTok in which she revealed that the replacement passport she had just received had the gender marker changed from female to male.
Ms. Schafer is a trans woman, widely beloved among Gen-Z for her acting—particularly her performance in “Euphoria”—and broadly considered one of the most beautiful women in the world. Over the years, she’s modeled for Prada, Vera Wang, Marc Jacobs, Alexander McQueen, and many other houses.
She came out as a teen girl and has renewed previously with the correct gender marker, with no issues. That means the State Department is either intentionally flagging all American passports with record of a gender marker change and/or they’re intentionally cross-referencing passports with birth certificates, some of which are issued by states that ban gender marker changes.
Not to mention: the ridiculous complexity for intersex Americans.
Florida, Kansas, Montana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas all prohibit gender marker amendments on birth certificates. Their number will very likely grow by the end of this year. Last week, the Arizona House approved a bill banning residents from amending their birth certificates to reflect their authentic gender identity.
I’m worried for all the obvious reasons: the government tracking, the likely surveillance of trans people, the grave risk of an incorrect, “outed” passport for any trans person who needs to travel internationally, the potential for confusion and obstruction over government documents for things like security clearances, etc.
That same day, the Bureau of Prisons announced that trans people incarcerated in federal prisons would be moved to facilities that align with their sex assigned at birth, as early as next week. There are nearly 2,300 trans people incarcerated in federal prisons at the moment.
Trans women transferred to men’s prisons will obviously be at substantially greater risk of violence.
The same day—yes, all on Friday—Iowa Republicans announced a bill that, if successful, would remove ‘gender identity’ as a protected class in the Iowa Civil Rights Act, thus eliminating anti-discrimination protections for all transgender Iowans.
It would make Iowa the first state to remove a protected class from civil rights law.
Meanwhile, at the White House—yes, same exact day—Trump was speaking to a large, bipartisan group of governors and went after Maine Gov. Janet Mills from behind his podium.
“Is Maine Here? The governor of Maine?”
“Yeah, I’m here,” she said from her seat in the audience.
“Are you not going to comply with that?” Trump demanded of her, referencing the executive order he signed on Feb. 5th that bans trans girls and young women from competing on girls’ and women’s sports teams.
“I’m complying with the state and federal laws,” she responded.
“We are the federal law,” snapped Trump. “You better do it… You better comply , you better comply, because otherwise you’re not getting any federal funding.”
“See you in court,” she retorted from her seat.
“Good,” said Trump. “I’ll see you in court. I look forward to that. That should be a real easy one, and enjoy your life after governor, because I don’t think you’ll be in elected politics.”
It was yet another moment Trump attempted to intimidate elected officials across the political spectrum over trans issues.
On Saturday, Trump spoke to the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), where he took a victory lap for ending “transgender insanity.”
“It’s all out now — critical race theory and transgender insanity. It’s all gone from our schools and from our military and I believe it’s gone, too… I believe that it’s all gone.”
Today, Bill Maher appeared on the “Pod Saves America” podcast and argued with co-host Jon Lovett about trans issues, urging him that Democrats would “lose every election” if they don’t give up more on trans equality.
Side note here: anti-trans punditry that claims to be offering the “reasonable middle” argument always seems to intensely focus on what they don’t want.
There is never a good faith framing of what they believe should be legal. There are reasons for that: either they don’t actually believe in minimum rights for trans people or they fear being targeted by extremists for offering support for even a modicum of trans equality.
The relentless pace of anti-trans actions and rhetoric have become overwhelming.
That’s how I’m doing.
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