#gender markers

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Cuba Will Now Allow Trans People to Change Gender Markers Without Bottom Surgery

A new law allows trans Cubans to update their identification cards by request without providing proof of genital surgery.

Samantha Riedel at Them:

Cuba’s National Assembly of People’s Power (NAPP) approved a law last week allowing transgender people to self-declare their gender on official documents without first undergoing surgery. NAPP members approved the new legislation on July 18, as the Associated Press reported. The law will allow citizens to change their gender marker on identification cards by request, and will no longer require applicants to provide a court order or proof of bottom surgery. Access to surgery has been limited in Cuba for years, according to Cuban LGBTQ+ activists, despite theoretically being guaranteed by the government since 2008. The U.S. government has maintained heavy economic sanctions against Cuba since 1962, severely limiting trade and access to resources like medical supplies. The new law also makes other, wide-ranging amendments to Cuba’s national civil registry — the state record-keeping system for birth and death certificates, marriage licenses, and citizenship papers — such as legal recognition of common-law partnerships and a process for digitizing paper records. Per the Cuban constitution, the NAPP has final authority to “approve, modify, and derogate laws.” The new law “will allow the country to have a modern civil registry,” wrote Minister of Justice Oscar Silvera Martínez on X last week, including “the issuance of digital documents with full validity and efficiency.” (It’s not all sunshine and Pride flags, though, as Martínez also praised the new law for allowing Cuba to incorporate “artificial intelligence” into government systems; also on X, Díaz-Canel praised a separate new law establishing protections for youth with a celebratory image sourced to the “generative AI” company Sama.)

As the US and UK are going the wrong way on trans rights, Cuba will now permit people to change gender markers without bottom surgery.

[tgirl-tamag0tchi]

GOT MY NAME AND GENDER MARKER CHANGED AT DMV!

Now headed home lol.

[laurenfoxmakesthings]

Concerning the gender marker news...

Alt: Bluesky thread by Shadi Petosky that says:

Again, this does not matter.

I’m literally been talking to people who corrected their gender marker today.

Go do it. You can correct your gender marker with Social Security and all 50 states for free with no legal or medical proof or no other documents changed.

You simply bring in your ID and a completed SS5 form

This is my appointment only but trans folks I’ve had great success walking into any Social Security office and telling them that they have an appointment wether they have one or not

When the security guard asks, if you have an appointment, you say yes then you go to the kiosk machine and take a number and then when you get to the clerk you just tell them you need a quick gender marker correction.

In every single case that we’ve heard about the people have done it immediately it takes less than two minutes.

Here is a know your rights packet with helpful phrases as the POMs manual.'

Resources — BITE DOWN

My comment on this: Please follow Shadi Petosky on bluesky if you can. There's more corrections to misinformation and actions you can do, rather than be panicked into the usual defeatist spirl by every single alert of bad news.

[gendercensus]

hello. for elon reasons i currently don’t feel great about the letter x being a universal alternative gender marker. makes me curious about which letter it could be replaced with. or if the majority would prefer entirely genderless id. does this sound like something you’d be interested in counting?

I don't currently have any plans to count a gender marker, because it varies depending on country, language, wildcard conventions, etc. It even varies within the UK depending on which institution you're talking to - and that's fine, they're usually recording subtly different information each time.

Musk doesn't own a letter, no matter how much he wants to make "fetch" happen. I'd say he can pry "X" from our cold, dead hands but we don't own it either. On the plus side, nonbinary people will outlive Elon Musk and we will definitely outlive the skip fire that is ex dot com.

[mckitterick]

Kansas republicans' culture war steps up another notch

Transgender people in Lawrence lack answers about enforcement around invalidated driver’s licenses

Transgender people in Lawrence — and former residents who left the country to avoid persecution — have been swept up in the statewide confus

Kansas transgender people have been swept up in the statewide confusion about enforcing anti-trans legislation that invalidates driver’s licenses with corrected gender markers.

House Substitute for Senate Bill 244 went into effect immediately after the Kansas House and Senate voted to override Governor Laura Kelly’s veto on Wednesday, February 18.

Using a “gut and go” strategy, legislators wedged two major legislative shifts into the bill. SB 244 eradicates transgender people’s fundamental right to privacy when using the bathroom in a public building, while also abolishing the opportunity for trans people to change their gender markers on Kansas drivers’ licenses or identification cards.

As a result, transgender Kansans had their IDs instantly invalidated in an enforcement rollout that has been scattershot and plagued with ambiguity.

full story on the Lawrence Kansas Times: X

this is what culture war looks like: crap all over people's lives, turn working-class people against one another for made-up nonsense that hurts real people, reap the benefits

it's all designed to distract from kleptocrats robbing us blind and abusing us for their own gain: keep citizens constantly fighting one another and protesting for basic rights, and we won't have time or energy to focus on fighting them so they can achieve their primary goals of wealth and power

[hezekiahwakely]

This is just a heads up to anyone who might need to hear it: the U.S. IS currently (as of August 12th) still issuing passports with an X gender marker on them. I know because I just got mine in the mail after sending in a renewal application. Here is the process I followed:

Print and fill out form DS-82 (passport renewal form) available here. I'm afraid I can't attest to how sending in a brand new application will go since my old passport had expired this year and I only had to renew it. You will need to PRINT this form -- the form filler on the Department of State website forces you to pick a gender marker, which will interfere with the next step.

Print and fill out this attestation form. This is connected to the class action lawsuit that's staying Trump's executive order for now.

Include all necessary supporting documentation, a valid photo, and any other information the form instructions ask for. Be thorough, don't give them a reason to deny you.

Mail it all in! The address to send it to depends on where you live. You can find more instructions on the Department of State website here, as well as here.

If you want to guarantee you get it faster (like before the lawsuit gets overturned), you can pay for expedited processing and shipping. I did not do this, but from when I mailed my application (July 17th) to the day they received it (July 21st) until today when I received my completed passport book and card (August 12th) it only took 26 days total. Either I got lucky, or they're processing them really fast right now, since they usually estimate a wait time of 4-6 weeks.

Good luck, fuck trump and the united states, and get em before they're gone.

[nerdygaymormon]

On October 8, 2025, the governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands issued an executive order establishing a process for gender marker changes on government-issued identification.

Legislation had been submitted to the legislature in November 2024 proposing a process that required a court order, but the measure was not advanced beyond its initial hearing. To address the existing gap, the governor acted through Executive Order to establish a clear and practical path forward.

Under the new process:

An individual aged 18 or older—or a parent or guardian on behalf of a minor—may request a change of gender marker in writing from the issuing agency.

The request must be accompanied by a statement, signed under penalty of perjury, from a licensed healthcare provider who has treated or evaluated the individual, confirming that the individual has an intersex condition and that a gender designation change is appropriate.

Alternatively, a judicial order from the Virgin Islands or another jurisdiction granting a gender change designation may be submitted in lieu of a healthcare provider’s statement.

Once approved, the relevant executive department will amend the individual’s identification documents accordingly. The revised documents will use the term “gender” rather than “sex” for the designation.

This aligns the U.S. Virgin Islands with at least 25 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia, which have adopted administrative procedures for amending gender designations on birth certificates, and more than 30 states, Puerto Rico, and D.C., which have similar processes for driver’s licenses.

Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. said this is needed to avoid confusion during ID checks. Police or other authorities need to quickly ensure a person is who they say they are when checking government-issued ID.

“You may have someone who has a driver’s license that is presenting as a male, but the person the police officer is stopping is a female. That’s a problem because I don’t know if this person is who they’re saying they are. So you have to create ways for people to legally change their gender.”

The governor said people were entitled to their opinions but he was governor for all Virgin Islanders.

“There are a lot of things in this world that we may not like or that may not support but the fact is, as governor of the Virgin Islands, I have to address all these issues and be able to encourage the Legislature to set up policy and regulation around how do we manage our government and how do we manage our people.” 

[drag-tween]

Supreme Court blocks transgender people from updating passports

The decision barring transgender people from changing their gender markers will cause "irreparable harm," advocates say

BREAKING NEWS: