Americans traveling abroad who have a passport had the option of selecting "male," "female," or "X." That choice would be eliminated should an Executive Order issued by President Donald Trump clear the many legal challenges it's likely to face including a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The new Executive Order only allows people to pick the gender they were assigned at birth. That's something non-binary and transgender people have taken clear issue with.
"The new lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Massachusetts, and law firm Covington & Burling LLP, on behalf of seven people who have not been able to obtain passports that match who they are because of the State Department’s new Passport Policy or are likely to be impacted by the new policy upon their next renewal." The complaint was filed in U.S. District Court in Boston, the ACLU said.
The lawsuit is seeking to prevent Trump's order from being enforced.
“The plaintiffs in this case have had their lives disrupted by a chaotic policy clearly motivated by animus that serves zero public interest,” said Sruti Swaminathan, Staff Attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project. “Our clients need to travel for work, school, and family, and forcing them to carry documents that directly contradict what they know about themselves to be true – or withhold those documents altogether–is a blatant effort to violate their privacy and deny them their freedom to be themselves."
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What does Trump's Executive Order say?
The cruise industry does not have to ask for a passport for most closed-loop cruises — that is a cruise that starts and ends in one U.S. port or starts in one U.S. port and and ends in a second U.S. port. There are countries where passports are required, and sailings that don't sail from the U.S. generally require a passport.
It is important to note that this is the document as Trump and his administration have delivered it.
Trump's Executive Order included the following:
Sec. 2. Policy and Definitions. It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality. Under my direction, the Executive Branch will enforce all sex-protective laws to promote this reality, and the following definitions shall govern all Executive interpretation of and application of Federal law and administration policy:
(a) “Sex” shall refer to an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female. “Sex” is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of “gender identity.”
(b) “Women” or “woman” and “girls” or “girl” shall mean adult and juvenile human females, respectively.
(c) “Men” or “man” and “boys” or “boy” shall mean adult and juvenile human males, respectively.
(d) “Female” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.
(e) “Male” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.
There is also a specific passage related to passports and other government-issued documents:
The Secretaries of State and Homeland Security, and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management, shall implement changes to require that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards, accurately reflect the holder’s sex, as defined under section 2 of this order; and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management shall ensure that applicable personnel records accurately report Federal employees’ sex, as defined by section 2 of this order.
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What this means for cruise lines
Cruise lines have public gendered bathrooms but do not have posted rules for who can use them. In theory, any passenger can use the bathroom of the gender they identify as, not whatever gender appears on their passport.
Most cruise ships also have some bathrooms designated for families. These are facilities designed for a parent and child, and they could also be used by anyone uncomfortable sharing a bathroom.
While the new Trump administration rules could force someone to have a different gender on his or her passport than the one they identify as that should not have an impact on cruising. There's no language in the Executive Order that specifically requires private businesses to force people to use the bathroom of the gender listed on their identification.
These new rules, should they eventually be declared legal, should not impact the cruise industry aside from forcing passengers to have passports where their gender does not match their identity.
No cruise line has a posted rule about which passengers can use which bathroom. All passengers also have the option of using the bathroom in their cabins, and some of the public gendered bathrooms are single-person anyways.
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