CBP Enforces Binary Sex Codes and Enhanced US Passport Validation in APIS
Sex Field Requirements: Effective Oct. 14, 2025, CBP systems will only accept “M” (Male) or “F” (Female) in the sex field of APIS transmissions. Any other characters will result in an “X Response-Insufficient Information” error, requiring airlines to resubmit the passenger data with corrected information.
Edit: Specifically this part:
They’re saying “Your passport is invalid (meaning you can’t travel) unless it has a M or F designation.” Meaning they would have to update their passport with the “correct” information. Assuming of course they actually send back the updated passport.
This amounts to a “technically legal” way to confiscate the passports of anyone with a nonbinary gender marker.
Reports of Passport Never Came Back type confiscation from trans people over the last few is depressingly searchable. (yes, biden admin too.)
Yeah, I hadn’t heard about it happening before Trump took office again but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if some of the more ideological rank and file workers started preemptively slow walking some trans people’s passports they got their hands on once he won before it became a top down directive.
Either way the Republicans have been doing a ton of boundary pushing with what they can technically legally do since taking control again and this is definitely aimed at being a legal gray zone way to basically invalidate trans people’s passports. And of course now we can’t even get nation wide injunctions to stop it. Sure is great