This week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it will only recognize “two biological sexes.”

In a Wednesday, April 2, press release, the agency said that it was “updating the USCIS Policy Manual to clarify that it only recognizes two biological sexes, male and female.”

Related

Donald Trump starts his presidency by declaring war on the LGBTQ+ community & democracy
Trump’s first day as president was an assault on trans rights and a reminder of the threat he presents to democracy.

The release cited President Donald Trump’s January 20, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”

Stay connected to your community

Connect with the issues and events that impact your community at home and beyond by subscribing to our newsletter.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

The president’s anti-trans order similarly declared that the U.S. government will only recognize two sexes, male and female, and falsely characterized so-called “efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex” as fundamental attacks on women “depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being.”

Among the order’s many anti-trans provisions, it instructed government agencies “to end the dederal funding of gender ideology.” It declared that “‘sex’ shall refer to an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female” and “is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of ‘gender identity.’” It also required that all federal agency forms that list an individual’s sex list only “male or female” as options.

Prior to Wednesday’s announcement, USCIS included an X gender option on intake its intake form for gender-nonconforming immigrants applying for naturalization status. That change was announced almost exactly one year ago, in April 2024.

But in its Wednesday release, USCIS said that per its new guidelines, the agency “considers a person’s sex as that which is generally evidenced on the birth certificate issued at or nearest to the time of birth. If the birth certificate issued at or nearest to the time of birth indicates a sex other than male or female, USCIS will base the determination of sex on secondary evidence.”

As the Los Angeles Blade notes, the USCIS Policy Manual defines “secondary evidence” as “evidence that may demonstrate a fact is more likely than not true, but the evidence does not derive from a primary, authoritative source.” According to Boundless, that may include medical records or other government-issued documents.

While the agency said that it would not “deny benefits solely because the benefit requestor did not properly indicate his or her sex,” it would issue documents on which the “sex” field is left blank or that indicate a sex different from the one an applicant was assigned at birth.

“There are only two sexes — male and female,” DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “President Trump promised the American people a revolution of common sense, and that includes making sure that the policy of the U.S. government agrees with simple biological reality. Proper management of our immigration system is a matter of national security, not a place to promote and coddle an ideology that permanently harms children and robs real women of their dignity, safety, and well-being.”

Immigration Equality Law and Policy Director Bridget Crawford called the policy “cruel and unnecessary,” adding that it “puts transgender, nonbinary, and intersex immigrants in danger,” according to the Blade. Crawford said that by forcing people to carry identity documents that do not reflect their gender identity, the U.S. government is opening them up to increased discrimination, harassment, and violence.

The policy, she said, will affect people’s ability to travel, work, access healthcare, and live their lives authentically.

“This is not about ‘common sense,’” Crawford said. “It is about erasing an entire community from the legal landscape.”

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.