Although recent reporting has sparked fears that the Trump administration could be beginning to revoke trans people's passports, these claims appear largely unsubstantiated.
Thank you for your balancing perspectives, Aleksandra. I think there is a variant of The Needle's conclusion that should merit consideration - that this is all just general "fuckery" against trans people, leftist folks, and other people the administration doesn't like, with the intended purpose of making us nervous and dissuading us from any form of advocacy.
Along about the same time as Askini and Rose experienced their problems, a trans friend of mine (a veteran trans activist) was being given the run-around by the State Department with her passport application, essentially demanding documents/evidence of things she wasn't required by State Dept. policy to provide. She obliged each time. Then they would then claim she hadn't provided requested documents when clearly she did - even when presenting it to them in person. This was repeated through numerous iterations until her application timed out and her passport fee was lost. (Many years later under Trump 2.0, after getting a US passport under the Biden Administration, US customs insisted on inspecting her phone when she was re-entering the country. Anticipating this might happen, she had run it completely dead and placed her charger in her checked luggage.)
We know other trans people have experienced other forms of fuckery, in the beginning of Trump 2.0. They would submit passport applications, only to have their documents lost/confiscated or returned mangled or defaced. One trans woman I recall received her documentation partially burnt.
I suspect having passport records wiped might be general pseudo-random fuckery. "Accidents" of this sort tend to happen all the time for people singled out for special treatment. Data accidents may also be the result of people examining our records in unprotected, editable databases - i.e. screwing up a database entry because one's cat decided to walk across the keyboard.
IMO, this is a general pattern of harassment that is intended to make us all anxious about our passports and our ability to use them for travel (without being rendered functionally stateless like Askini). They don't have to do it to large numbers of us. They just have to make examples of some of us - especially higher profile figures like activists and influencers.
My opinion (and it's only my opinion, since none of us really know what is going on) is that most trans people can trust the integrity of their passports (at least at this time), but some people who stand out for their activism may have some "special treatment" to fear.
I would also add that we already know what they *can* do with our passports if they choose to do it. We should bear that in mind when we travel abroad. Any trip abroad *could* be a one-way trip. On that note, please consider returning via one of the US customs checkpoints abroad, so that if there is a problem with your passport or your being allowed to re-enter without detainment, you'll know it before you leave foreign soil. Here is an article about it: https://insurte.com/travel-guide/places-you-can-go-through-us-customs-abroad. All that can happen at these checkpoints is that they can detain you briefly for questioning and deny you re-entry. However, at the end of the day, you are free to leave, and you will not have used your international flight ticket. Also be advised that it is very common for countries to have policies that grant you residence status in the event you are rendered stateless by your home country (e.g. throughout Europe, as I understand). HOWEVER, as Aleksandra points out, we are (for the most part) not there. Yet.
Being one of the transgender individuals who have had her passport and citizenship revoked by the Trump administration, I find this article does no justice to the ones who have suffered this since last April
I agree wholeheartedly. As someone who has to travel abroad to visit family, the article genuinely scared me until I started investigating it. That cannot be how we operate.
I travel abroad frequently also. My radar is always highly atuned when entering the US. Peripheral assumptions about identity documents is something our population doesn't need currently. Level headed information is.
I think most of us have developed skills in presenting ourselves as "cool as a cucumber," even when we are nervous/frightened inside. It's a survival skill. When I enter a situation such as this, I need to be prepared with all the possible scenarios. Not being fully informed and prepared is what makes *me* nervous.
I thought the Needle article was concerning, but I suppose I didn't read it with the same level of fright. We are all still left to speculate about what happened bureaucratically and why. To me, it's just another data point.
It's a really good thing The Needle didn't claim that this was happening en masse, then isn't it? It's also really unfortunate that you spent a lot of time shadow-boxing against claims that Jane didn't *ever* make.
I had this chat with Jane already. I’ll just copy-paste what I told her with some minor edits because I think I explained my take pretty well:
“Hey Jane, I appreciate you reaching out. I'd like to preface this by saying I meant absolutely no ill will towards you or the Needle; I included the disclaimer for this reason but in case it wasn't clear, you did a fantastic job telling Kathleen's story and I'm glad you were able to share it. I don't address her story because I don't want to cast doubt on it; I believe her wholeheartedly despite my reservations about your conclusions. But I also don't wade into discussing specifics about marxist politics because I didn't want to deal with that kind of drama on a fact-checking article.
I do think there is some miscommunication between us, I towards your position as much as you towards mine, and I appreciate you clarifying yours. But in case I didn't stress this enough on Monday: my disagreement is primarily with your suggestion that it could be because of her being a trans advocate, which legitimizes it as a possibility and invites unnecessary fear. I didn't tell you this at the time, but I got multiple fearful messages because of your article and I don't like it when people feel that way. I also didn't say this, but your raising it as a possibility even scared me, as I travel often for family reasons and I've definitely pissed people off in various states (I'm literally abroad right now [note: I’m not anymore]). You saying it was the 'likely' explanation made it much, much, much worse, and quite frankly I don't know why you'd say that.
My overall point is that if it were as you described, there would be no narrow enforcement of that; as in, it wouldn't be just Kathleen and a narrow band of trans activists who're targeted. So, if it truly were a policy the state department were starting to roll out, this wouldn't stop at just them. The trump administration does not operate on restraint, and any authority exercised to the effect of what you described would undoubtedly be expanded—and expanded quickly at that. That is the silent implication of what you suggested, and it is the takeaway many got out of your article. Whether you intended that is an entirely different matter, but that is the result. And that result has consequences I'd rather avoid.
I spoke with [source redacted, but she’s a person who you spend a lot of time talking about] as well, specifically about this. She was the one who pointed me towards the batch revocation stuff, although she decided to keep her comments off the record. But I'll note that after getting the facts, she did not believe Kathleen's issue was ideological either.
I'll finish off by saying that I think you've done a lot of really great work and I don't want to discourage you from that in any way. I genuinely enjoy helping you improve your articles and I appreciate your willingness to hear me out.”
Look: the only thing I’m “shadow-boxing” with is fear. The specifics of Kathleen’s case are really well reported and like I said, I didn’t want to discredit that in any way. My issue was solely with the conclusion y’all reached and the fear it caused.
Thank you for your balancing perspectives, Aleksandra. I think there is a variant of The Needle's conclusion that should merit consideration - that this is all just general "fuckery" against trans people, leftist folks, and other people the administration doesn't like, with the intended purpose of making us nervous and dissuading us from any form of advocacy.
Along about the same time as Askini and Rose experienced their problems, a trans friend of mine (a veteran trans activist) was being given the run-around by the State Department with her passport application, essentially demanding documents/evidence of things she wasn't required by State Dept. policy to provide. She obliged each time. Then they would then claim she hadn't provided requested documents when clearly she did - even when presenting it to them in person. This was repeated through numerous iterations until her application timed out and her passport fee was lost. (Many years later under Trump 2.0, after getting a US passport under the Biden Administration, US customs insisted on inspecting her phone when she was re-entering the country. Anticipating this might happen, she had run it completely dead and placed her charger in her checked luggage.)
We know other trans people have experienced other forms of fuckery, in the beginning of Trump 2.0. They would submit passport applications, only to have their documents lost/confiscated or returned mangled or defaced. One trans woman I recall received her documentation partially burnt.
I suspect having passport records wiped might be general pseudo-random fuckery. "Accidents" of this sort tend to happen all the time for people singled out for special treatment. Data accidents may also be the result of people examining our records in unprotected, editable databases - i.e. screwing up a database entry because one's cat decided to walk across the keyboard.
IMO, this is a general pattern of harassment that is intended to make us all anxious about our passports and our ability to use them for travel (without being rendered functionally stateless like Askini). They don't have to do it to large numbers of us. They just have to make examples of some of us - especially higher profile figures like activists and influencers.
My opinion (and it's only my opinion, since none of us really know what is going on) is that most trans people can trust the integrity of their passports (at least at this time), but some people who stand out for their activism may have some "special treatment" to fear.
I would also add that we already know what they *can* do with our passports if they choose to do it. We should bear that in mind when we travel abroad. Any trip abroad *could* be a one-way trip. On that note, please consider returning via one of the US customs checkpoints abroad, so that if there is a problem with your passport or your being allowed to re-enter without detainment, you'll know it before you leave foreign soil. Here is an article about it: https://insurte.com/travel-guide/places-you-can-go-through-us-customs-abroad. All that can happen at these checkpoints is that they can detain you briefly for questioning and deny you re-entry. However, at the end of the day, you are free to leave, and you will not have used your international flight ticket. Also be advised that it is very common for countries to have policies that grant you residence status in the event you are rendered stateless by your home country (e.g. throughout Europe, as I understand). HOWEVER, as Aleksandra points out, we are (for the most part) not there. Yet.
Being one of the transgender individuals who have had her passport and citizenship revoked by the Trump administration, I find this article does no justice to the ones who have suffered this since last April
Please message me more details about this. I'd love to hear more about your story if you're willing to share.
Both of you, please let us all know about it. Good, bad, or ugly, we all need to stay on top of the truth of our situation!
Thank you for your investigative reporting. Facts and not surmise is so important currently.
I agree wholeheartedly. As someone who has to travel abroad to visit family, the article genuinely scared me until I started investigating it. That cannot be how we operate.
I travel abroad frequently also. My radar is always highly atuned when entering the US. Peripheral assumptions about identity documents is something our population doesn't need currently. Level headed information is.
I think most of us have developed skills in presenting ourselves as "cool as a cucumber," even when we are nervous/frightened inside. It's a survival skill. When I enter a situation such as this, I need to be prepared with all the possible scenarios. Not being fully informed and prepared is what makes *me* nervous.
I thought the Needle article was concerning, but I suppose I didn't read it with the same level of fright. We are all still left to speculate about what happened bureaucratically and why. To me, it's just another data point.
It's a really good thing The Needle didn't claim that this was happening en masse, then isn't it? It's also really unfortunate that you spent a lot of time shadow-boxing against claims that Jane didn't *ever* make.
I had this chat with Jane already. I’ll just copy-paste what I told her with some minor edits because I think I explained my take pretty well:
“Hey Jane, I appreciate you reaching out. I'd like to preface this by saying I meant absolutely no ill will towards you or the Needle; I included the disclaimer for this reason but in case it wasn't clear, you did a fantastic job telling Kathleen's story and I'm glad you were able to share it. I don't address her story because I don't want to cast doubt on it; I believe her wholeheartedly despite my reservations about your conclusions. But I also don't wade into discussing specifics about marxist politics because I didn't want to deal with that kind of drama on a fact-checking article.
I do think there is some miscommunication between us, I towards your position as much as you towards mine, and I appreciate you clarifying yours. But in case I didn't stress this enough on Monday: my disagreement is primarily with your suggestion that it could be because of her being a trans advocate, which legitimizes it as a possibility and invites unnecessary fear. I didn't tell you this at the time, but I got multiple fearful messages because of your article and I don't like it when people feel that way. I also didn't say this, but your raising it as a possibility even scared me, as I travel often for family reasons and I've definitely pissed people off in various states (I'm literally abroad right now [note: I’m not anymore]). You saying it was the 'likely' explanation made it much, much, much worse, and quite frankly I don't know why you'd say that.
My overall point is that if it were as you described, there would be no narrow enforcement of that; as in, it wouldn't be just Kathleen and a narrow band of trans activists who're targeted. So, if it truly were a policy the state department were starting to roll out, this wouldn't stop at just them. The trump administration does not operate on restraint, and any authority exercised to the effect of what you described would undoubtedly be expanded—and expanded quickly at that. That is the silent implication of what you suggested, and it is the takeaway many got out of your article. Whether you intended that is an entirely different matter, but that is the result. And that result has consequences I'd rather avoid.
I spoke with [source redacted, but she’s a person who you spend a lot of time talking about] as well, specifically about this. She was the one who pointed me towards the batch revocation stuff, although she decided to keep her comments off the record. But I'll note that after getting the facts, she did not believe Kathleen's issue was ideological either.
I'll finish off by saying that I think you've done a lot of really great work and I don't want to discourage you from that in any way. I genuinely enjoy helping you improve your articles and I appreciate your willingness to hear me out.”
Look: the only thing I’m “shadow-boxing” with is fear. The specifics of Kathleen’s case are really well reported and like I said, I didn’t want to discredit that in any way. My issue was solely with the conclusion y’all reached and the fear it caused.
thanks for doing the work to publish this! I'm glad folks like you are putting these stories into perspective