Changing Gender Marker on US Passport

[Toughy]

It's really astonishing, to me, that someone who works for the passport office does not have a clear policy for this kind of question. Someone who works for the passport office has to come to this website to ask what the policy says. What does the head of your passport office say? Why doesn't s/he call his/her boss?

If the public can call the main office and get info, why can't your office? I'm not sure the idea that one office does not return calls to another office instills any kind of confidence in the State Dept.

(Dutch this is not a personal attack on you, it's about the system)

Originally Posted by Dutch Leonard

I wondered if anyone had had any experience doing this, since Google isn't being my friend on this topic.

I work in a post office and we do passports. I vaguely recall seeing a memo about transgender people from the Dept of State, something to the effect that a doctor's note was all that was needed to change one's gender when they applied for a passport.

Today, a trans woman came in with her current passport as a male and I told her she could do it as a renewal by mail as long as she met all the other requirements for doing a DS-82 and include information from her doctor along with her fee, her current passport and a new picture.

However, since she mentioned having gone to Thailand for surgery, I wonder if she isn't going to have a problem. I was looking at the US Dept of State site tonight and when you search for "gender" on the site, I did find a link for what they want in that doctor letter. And that is about it, there is not a lot of info at travel.state.gov about this issue.

http://travel.state.gov/passport/get...irst_5100.html

I was surprised at the very long and specific list of what they want and doubt that a doctor in Thailand would have a DEA registration number. This makes it look like it has to be a US physician. If she doesn't have a US physician, is she hosed?

I ought to be able to call our regional passport agency to clarify things but we haven't had any luck getting those guys on the phone lately. We leave messages and they don't call us back. I'd hate for her to send money in only to find out they won't do it and those fees aren't refundable.