The Department of Foreign Affairs has updated its travel advice for transgender people planning to visit the United States, noting authorities there want visa application forms to “reflect the traveller’s biological sex at birth”.
Irish people intending to travel to the US must apply for entry permission via the Electronic System for Travel Authorisation or by obtaining a visa.
During this process, a person must declare their sex on the relevant forms. In an update issued this week, the Department of Foreign Affairs said US authorities have indicated that this part of the form should reflect “biological sex at birth”.
Travellers with an “X” gender marker on their passport or “whose sex on their passport” differs from their “sex assigned at birth” should contact the US embassy in Dublin for further details on specific entry requirements, the advice states.
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A number of other European countries including Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands have also updated their travel guidance regarding how people’s gender is listed on their travel documents.
The Department of Foreign Affairs advises Irish citizens intending to travel to the US to “familiarise themselves with US entry requirements”. If an Irish citizen is detained in the US, they have the right to contact the Embassy of Ireland or the nearest Consulate General of Ireland.
On the day of his inauguration last January, US president Donald Trump signed several executive orders to change the US government’s policies on gender and diversity.
Mr Trump also raised the issue in his inaugural address, stating: “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.”
One executive order, called Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, instructed the federal government to remove “all radical gender ideology guidance, communication, policies, and forms”.
That led the US state department to eliminate the “X” gender as an option on forms and to suspend its policy allowing transgender, intersex and nonbinary people to alter the sex field of their passports.
