People Are Not Things - And More On Passports
People Are Not Things
This is my journey to get my passport and WHY Civil rights and fighting for them are so important. I am not a thing, I am not a number I am a person just like you.
"It May Be Too White"
That was the first thing she said to me.
I had been standing at the counter for maybe ninety seconds. I handed over my DS-11 and my passport photo, and she held the photo up and told me it might be too white. What does "too white" even mean? It was a decent photo. It was as good as the one on my driver's license. I had gone to a listed provider to get it taken — FedEx, in my case, and I hate FedEx — precisely so this wouldn't happen.
She hmm'd and haw'd. She suggested I go get another one, and warned me that if she submitted this one it might get rejected. I told her to submit it anyway.
Then she moved on to my birth certificate. She studied it. Then my driver's license. She studied that too. Then she asked whether I had proof of my name change and proof of my gender change.
I did have them. I handed over the court orders. And then she hmm'd and haw'd over those, and I ended up walking her through the documents — pointing out the court stamps, the signatures, explaining that these were official records issued by a court.
I kept my cool. I want that on the record, because I was angry.
Finally she had me raise my hand and swear that everything on the application was truthful, and then she had me sign.
She did not do that to the man who came up after me. Same office, same visit, same form — he was a first-time applicant filing a DS-11, exactly like me. He raised no hand. He swore nothing. He signed his paperwork and left.
I don't know why. I only know what I watched happen, and I know how it felt to stand there and be the one singled out.
"Your Gender Doesn't Match Your Documents"
That was the phone call, later the same day. Same office. Same woman.
No sh#t. I did not say what I was thinking.
What I said was that the current administration has blocked my ability to be documented accurately, and that I was required to report what a doctor stamped on a form in a delivery room in 1968 — even though everything about my life, my body, and my medical history since then says otherwise. Including surgeries. Including every other piece of ID I carry.
She decided she needed to call a downstream passport adjudicator to verify what I was telling her.
So I said okay, and I waited.
Twenty minutes later she called back. "You were right." We chatted for another minute and hung up.
I want to sit with that for a second, because it's the part that has stayed with me. I had to explain federal policy to the federal employee administering it. And then wait, in my own kitchen, while a stranger confirmed to another stranger that I was telling the truth about my own life.
That Night
It wrecked me.
I cried. I went to bed early because I couldn't hold the day up anymore, and then I had nightmares all night long.
I'm going to say the unglamorous thing here: bravery is not the absence of that. I did the brave thing during the day and I fell apart at night, and both of those are true, and if you are reading this on the night after your own appointment — that is not weakness. That is what it costs. It is supposed to cost something. That's the point of the machinery.
People Are Not Things
The next morning I was scrolling, still hollowed out, and I came across the photo at the top of this post. A van, painted by hand: PEOPLE ARE NOT THINGS.
Exactly.
I am not a number. I am not a data field. I am not a checkbox that has to be reconciled against an entry made about me before I could speak.
I am a person. I have feelings, hopes, and dreams. I bleed red. I'm clever, I'm insightful, and I am fun to be around. I am human.
Where This Comes From
If you're reading this and you don't live inside it, here is the short version of how we got here — because I think a lot of people assume that what happened to me at that counter was one rude employee having a bad day. It wasn't. It was policy working exactly as designed.
- In January 2025, Executive Order 14168 directed the federal government to recognize only sex assigned "at conception." <cite index="18-1">The order characterized transgender identity as "false" and "corrosive,"</cite> and two days later <cite index="18-1">the State Department overhauled its sex-marker rules, reverting to practices it had abandoned in 1992.</cite>
- The ACLU sued on behalf of seven transgender, intersex, and nonbinary plaintiffs. In April 2025, U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick blocked the policy, finding it was motivated by animus and violated equal protection. She wrote that the executive order's language was <cite index="10-1">candid in its rejection of the identity of an entire group.</cite> A federal judge said out loud what I was trying to say at that counter.
- <cite index="2-1">On November 6, 2025, the Supreme Court put her ruling on hold, allowing the State Department to enforce the birth-sex policy while the litigation continues.</cite>
- <cite index="15-1">The case is still ongoing</cite> — as of mid-2026 the parties were briefing summary judgment in the District of Massachusetts. Nothing about this is settled. It can change again.
So no, this isn't paranoia and it isn't one clerk. It is a documented federal policy that a federal judge already found was built on animus, currently in force because the Supreme Court let it be.
And here is the part I keep turning over. The movement that insists government should stay out of people's lives has made an exception for mine. That contradiction is so total that I've stopped believing it's a contradiction at all. I think it's the design. When you look at GLAAD's Accountability Project — a searchable database of anti-LGBTQ statements by public figures and organizations — the overlap between elected Republicans and organized Christian nationalist groups isn't incidental. It's the through-line.
I'm not going to relitigate all of that here. I wrote about it at length already:
Why SCOTUS (Supreme Court) Is Rotten →
If You Are About to Do This
You are going to be in this line. So here is what I wish someone had handed me.
Know what you'll get. Under the current policy, new, renewed, and replacement passports are issued with sex assigned at birth, regardless of your gender identity, your legal name change, or any other documentation. The "X" marker option is gone. Applying does not mean you did something wrong — it means the policy is what it is right now.
Your existing passport is still good. A passport already issued with an accurate M, F, or X marker stays valid until it expires. The policy hits you at the next new, renewed, or replacement application.
Bring your name change orders — certified copies. I resented being asked for mine, and I was wrong to be surprised by it. Lambda Legal specifically advises bringing certified copies of name change documents, because mismatched names across records can cause problems with employment verification, license renewals, and background checks. Be aware, too, that requesting a name change on the passport itself can be what triggers the sex marker being changed to match your sex assigned at birth. The paperwork request is legitimate. The system that requires it of me and not of the man behind me is not.
Document everything. Keep your application. Keep every letter. Write down every phone call — the date, the time, the name of the person you spoke to, and what they said. I have notes on my adjudicator call. If you take one thing from this post, take that one.
Know who to call. The ACLU is litigating Orr v. Trump and has current knowledge of how these applications are actually being processed. GLAD Law handles identity document cases. Lambda Legal maintains a trans ID guidance FAQ. If you have a hard travel deadline, say so the first time you contact any of them.
Expect it to cost you something, and plan for that too. Don't schedule anything important for that evening. Tell someone where you're going. Have a person you can call afterward.
The Last Thing
I did it. I was brave, I went through the machinery, and in about six weeks I should have a passport in my hand.
When I travel, the passport moment will be a moment. A few seconds of discomfort and humiliation at a counter, and then it's over.
But here's the thing.
Cis people don't have a passport moment. They aren't pulled aside. They aren't sworn in while the person behind them isn't. They aren't called at home and asked to justify their own existence to a supervisor. They are not made separate and then told the separation is neutral.
Government should not dictate my liberty, my identity, or my personal choices. It should not require me to carry a document that contradicts my own life in order to leave my own country.
People are not things.
I'm not a thing. Neither are you.
Michelle writes at Transgender Liberty. If this post was useful to you, share it with someone who's got an appointment coming up.
