U.S. State Department suspends issuance of passports with an altered gender marker

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio instructed his subordinates to suspend the acceptance of applications for passports with the X mark in the sex column. This was reported by The Guardian on January 23.

"The policy of the United States is that the sex of a person is not subject to change," reads Rubio's statement.

The letter also clarifies that official documents, including passports and consular birth certificates abroad, must now use biological sex rather than gender. The order applies to both future and already filed applications. At the same time, documents already issued with the X marker will be valid, although there may be problems with their renewal.

The reason for such changes was the order of US President Donald Trump "Protecting women from the extremism of gender ideology and restoring biological truth in the federal government", which he signed on his first day as leader of the country. According to him, only two genders - male and female - will now be officially recognized in the US.

Earlier, Trump banned US embassies and consulates from displaying any flags except, the state flag. Such a decision is primarily aimed at preventing the raising of flags of LGBT (organization recognized as extremist and banned in Russia) and protest movement Black Lives Matters (BLM) by the country's representations abroad.

On January 22, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said she positively assessed the initiative. "Now only EU embassies remain under these banners...," she wrote in her Telegram channel.

In his inauguration speech on January 20, Trump said that official US policy now implies recognition of only two genders - male and female.