Euphoria star and transgender activist Hunter Schafer has revealed that her newly issued U.S. passport now incorrectly lists her as male — a move she says is the result of President Donald Trump’s executive orders regarding transgender rights.
The 26-year-old actress took to TikTok to share the “harsh reality check” she received when picking up her updated travel document, which now bears an “M” gender marker, despite her having selected female on her application.
“I was shocked,” Schafer admitted. “I just didn’t think it was actually going to happen.”
Trump’s Crackdown on Trans Rights Hits Home
On his first day back in office, President Trump signed an executive order recognizing only two sexes — male and female — strictly based on a person’s sex assigned at birth, BBC News reports.
“It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” the order reads. “These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”
This order eliminated the ability for Americans to self-identify their gender on passports and froze any applications that requested a gender marker different from what was recorded at birth.
Schafer – who lost her previous passport while filming overseas – applied for a replacement as she had done before — marking her gender as female. But when she picked it up from the Federal Passport Agency in Los Angeles, she was stunned to see that officials had changed her gender marker to male.
“I wanna acknowledge my privilege as a celebrity trans woman who is white and thin and can adhere to contemporary beauty standards — and it still happened,” she said.
Schafer explained that she never had her birth certificate updated, which led her to believe that federal agencies are now required to cross-reference birth records when processing passports.
“It’s been nearly a decade since I changed my gender marker,” she said. “This has led me to believe that the agencies in charge of passports are now required to cross-reference birth certificates.”
“I’ll Believe It When I See It”
Schafer admitted that she initially dismissed Trump’s vows to target transgender rights, describing them as “just talk.” But now, she’s experiencing the effects firsthand.
“I was like, ‘I’ll believe it when I see it,’ and today, I saw it on my new passport,” she said, holding up the document, before adding that the change “is a direct result of the administration our country is currently operating under”.
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She also warned that the consequences of these policies are real and affect trans people across all backgrounds.
“There’s a lot of talk, and then things start happening,” she said. “It’s not just talk. This is real, and it’s happening. No one — no matter their circumstance, no matter how wealthy or white or pretty or whatever — is excluded.”
Despite the setback, Schafer remains defiant.
“I don’t give a f*** that they put an M on my passport. It doesn’t change really anything about me or my transness,” she said. “However, it does make life a little harder.”
A Wider Attack on Transgender Rights
Schafer’s passport issue comes as part of a broader push by the Trump administration to eliminate transgender protections. Earlier this month, Trump signed an executive order banning trans women and girls from competing in women’s sports.
Surrounded by young girls during the signing, Trump declared, “The radical left has waged an all-out campaign to erase the very concept of biological sex and replace it with a militant transgender ideology.”
He went further, calling transgender athletes who compete in women’s sports “cheaters” and claiming that “transgender ideology extremism” is a threat to fairness.
“This is going to end, it’s ending right now, and no one’s going to do a damn thing about it,” Trump said.
For Schafer, the incorrect gender marker on her passport is more than just an administrative error — it’s proof that the rights of trans people in America are being systematically erased.
“This is not just some hypothetical culture war,” she said. “This is happening. And we have to pay attention.”
Her experience is a stark reminder that the policies being pushed by Trump’s administration are already having real-world consequences.
