“I had a bit of a harsh reality check today,” Hunter Schafer said at the beginning of a lengthy video posted to her TikTok stories on Feb. 21. The Euphoria star went on to reveal that she recently had to renew her passport, and was surprised when she saw the new identification had a large “M” next to the gender marker. Although she was aware of Donald Trump’s transphobic declarations, Schafer admitted that she didn’t expect those policies to actually be implemented.
“My initial reaction to [Trump’s remarks], because our president is a lot of talk, is ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’ And today, I saw it,” Schafer said, holding up her new passport. “I was shocked, because I just didn’t think it was actually going to happen.”
She pointed her finger squarely at Trump’s executive orders as the reason for this change. “This is the first time this has happened to me since I changed my gender marker, we’re coming up on a decade now, and I do believe it is a direct result of the administration our country is currently operating under,” Schafer said.
She specifically mentioned the order Trump signed on his first day in office, which declared the government would only recognize two sexes, which were assigned at birth. As an extension of this order, passport applications or renewals that request a gender marker differing from a person’s gender assigned at birth have been frozen. Advocates For Trans Equality currently recommends that trans individuals with valid passports should refrain from applying to renew or alter them.
Schafer described the effect this will have on her personally, while also emphasizing that such a change will be much more harmful to trans people without her intersectional privileges.
“It’s going to come along with having to out myself to border patrol agents and that whole gig much more often than I would like to or is really necessary,” she said. “It’s not just talk. This is real, and it’s happening. No one, no matter their circumstance, no matter how wealthy or white or pretty or whatever, is excluded.”
The post Hunter Schafer Reveals Her Passport’s Gender Marker Was Changed To Male appeared first on Elite Daily.
