Keen-eyed individuals spotted another blow to LGBTQ protections under the U.S.’s new presidential administration.
First flagged by Media Matters for America journalist Ari Drennen, the official page for changing sexual (or gender) identification on government documents — overseen by the Social Security Administration — has been removed from public view. The page currently displays an access denied notice that reads “You are not authorized to access this page.”
Drennen and others online later confirmed the page was inaccessible to all users, including those with personal Social Security accounts logged into the website. The Social Security Administration’s page on Gender Identity has also been hidden, prompting users with a 404 error. Some existing FAQs on the process — which allows citizens to change their gender identification to a binary or nonbinary (“X”) status — are still accessible to the public at the time of reporting. The office’s resources for LGBTQI communities are also still visible.
Under a Biden administration change from 2022, American citizens did not need to show medical or legal evidence to obtain a change in sexual identification, lauded as a major victory for LGBTQ communities nationwide. Before Trump’s inauguration, advocates had warned that the new leadership would move quickly to repeal such provisions, and recommended individuals update their official documents, including social security cards, prior to Trump taking office.
Credit: Screenshot / U.S. Social Security Administration
Less than 24 hours after Trump was sworn in, the new president removed all LGBTQ-related pages from the White House website, including information published by the Biden administration. Searches for “sexual identification” and “gender” on the official White House page only return a link to Trump’s recent executive order on what he has called “gender ideology extremism.”
Queries for pages with the terms “lesbian,” “gay,” “bisexual,” and “transgender” populate similarly sparse results that only reference new Trump edicts. In the aforementioned executive order, President Trump declared that the United States would only recognize two biological genders, based on an ironically confusing definition of “gender at time of conception.” That executive order effectively erases trans and gender nonconforming individuals who had legally changed their sexual identification on official documents. The executive order had no guidance in regards to intersex individuals or other biologically nonbinary identities, which apply to millions of Americans.
