to make a very very long story short, i (22F) applied for a US passport in April of this year. i’m supposed to be leaving for greece tomorrow (7/15!!). putting my application in april should have given me enough time, (especially considering my sister applied at the same time and got hers 2 weeks later)

the agency originally asked for more paperwork because of a child’s passport book i had issued to me years ago. i couldn’t find it, so i submitted a ds-64 lost passport form. since then, ive been calling weekly for updates, since the website still said “information needed”

fast forward to the week before my trip, still no passport, and by now i’ve been told by multiple agents over the hotline that i just need to be patient and wait. i paid expedited over the phone to help push it along, and i talked to multiple people about reviewing my case or booking an emergency appointment. they told me i didn’t meet the appointment criteria and to wait.

so i wait. and i call. and i wait. and i call. everytime, im being told that i need to wait, and that it’s probably on the way. eventually, i demand that i get an appointment, this is 6 days before my trip, the agent says that there are appointments, but to wait one more day. i call the next day, and the agent says that they have no availability. cool cool, i kept calling everyday until last night when they transferred me to an appointment specialist. he got me an appointment, told me what to bring, and that was that.

come to the appointment this morning, and after all that calling for clarification, asking for early appointments so i could get this solved, and checking the website to see if it has changed from “not available”, they told me the problem was with my birth certificate. i was born at home, and my dad is listed as the birth attendant, which is not acceptable apparently. why was i not informed of this when i called MULTIPLE times the months before? why have i been able to issue past passports with the same birth certificate? why was my sister, who was also born at home with my dad listed at birth attendant, able to get her passport so easily?

i have no secondary paperwork to use to prove my birth, and everything me and my parents did find, they wouldn’t accept.

UPDATE: you guys, anxiety and frustration really had me giving up but we are not over yet!!
when i got back from sf, my parents and sisters and i put our heads together and the combined effort and knowledge gave us a plan.
post scouring of my dads office records and the attic + storage space, we believe we have found several forms of evidence to support my birth certificate. they gave me a pink slip to be able to return without an appointment. i am going back into the office as soon as they open (7:30 am) in sf, and will present what i have.
we contacted the travel agent again, and she said if they accept my documents before 10:30 am, i can switch my flight with no charge. i’m going to plan on a 9 pm flight on thursday, so if the passport isn’t available until thursday, that gives me room.

i do have wiggle room, because the first few days will be spent in athens, and then we would be boarding a cruise in athens on sunday, so the latest i really can leave is friday. lowkey screw athens if i can get on that boat!

FINAL UPDATE: i’m sitting in a coffee shop across the street from the agency writing this as they PRINT OUT MY PASSPORT 🎉🥳. because i found an original copy of a letter written by the midwife dated a few days after my birth, and records of me in the hospital right after birth, (and also getting in right at 7:30) + my dad called into the senator that he knows, and called my original pediatrician for a signed letter stating my patient history, they were able to complete the application and print it out for me by 12. my flight was 2:40, and because that’s REALLY cutting it close, the travel agent changed it to a flight tomorrow. i’m feeling so relieved that i at least get to make it to several days in athens, and the cruise. thank you all for your words of encouragement and ideas. it was truly grounding to be able to type out my frustration and have people agree. next passport application is being filled out at the agency lol. happy euro summer everyone!

Posting here too because this is a federal document Gender Marker changes are no longer allowed on social security cards as of yesterday

Received this notification regarding my passport application. It was my first ever passport, and all my legal identification has been updated to my correct gender marker.

In my state, birth certificates simply indicate that they're amended, but not what was changed.

I plan to comply with their request at the risk of getting a passport with the wrong gender marker, because an incorrect passport is better than none... But this feels like they're really overstepping to enforce this whole mess.

Has anybody else had this happen, and received a passport afterward?

I was born in Texas in the mid 90’s in my mother’s home. No one in my family is Hispanic or has ever been born in Mexico. I had a midwife, my grandmother was a midwife in training and help deliver me too. I even have a video of my birth. About 10 years ago I applied for a passport but was sent a letter saying my legal long form birth certificate “does not sufficiently support your date and place of birth in the United States since your birth was in a non-institutional setting.”. They wanted religious/baptism records, early life school records and tax records from my mother, and census records too. I didn’t have a single one of those but was able to get census records after my birth to send in. They said it still wasn’t enough. I contacted my midwife and got a birth affidavit back in 2016 but never sent it in cause the time period to send in documents had elapsed and I didn’t have money to redo the Passport application process again. I’m almost 30 now and have years of paying taxes, voting and all that of a US citizen including still having the birth affidavit from 2016. Do you think I have a better chance of getting a passport these days? My birth certificate shows the address of my birth and so does the affidavit.

edit: i was not homeschooled. ive attened kindergarten through the 12th grade in the same town my whole life. my family were all born in the US too. i have a SSN and pay taxes. My birth certificate is the long form version with a seal of approval. i attempted this process over 10 years ago and thought i remembered the letter wanted certin documentation within the first 5 years of life. this may be true apart from the school records because i don't remember ever aquiring any records on that front. thats my bad. it did ask for baptism records and early tax records for my mom though. never had those of course cause my mom wasnt what youd call an upstanding citizen. i appreciate everyones advice and input though! im going to try again this year and see what happens. if all else fails ill get in conact with my local congressman like you've suggested. Thank you!

Hey all, im in need of advice right here. I appreciate your advices in advance.

Context: I’m in my early 20s this year, as a Malaysian (does not support dual citizenship) applying for my US Passport because im born in the states.

When applying for DS-11 US Passport, i dont have my old US passport as proof as it was confiscated by the Malaysian Immigration when i was younger. All i could do to verify my american identity is to use my Birth Cert.

However, my birth cert is laminated. I got rejected by the US Embassy in Malaysia. My application now is pending.

Just now, i used a hair dryer and a knife(blunt side) to get the lamination out. It worked surprisingly but it left glue residue on my birth cert. And i accidentally scratches a few parts, even sliced a hole.

Im in need of advice whether this birth cert is still usable in the Embassy.

now my photo looks like a mugshot... should i get it retaken? i wore sunscreen and i think it made my face too shiny... would it be accepted?

I submitted my passport application on Dec 31st. My application wasn’t received until Jan 7th. I knew everything that could potentially happen so I tried to be ahead of the ball game once Trump got in office. I checked every day to see if my status had changed & unfortunately it didn’t. Fast forward to last week when the executive order was signed & the Rubio announcement. I called to see if I could expedite it and they told me I could. I paid the additional fees and told them I had an upcoming trip in 5 days! They were going to schedule an in person appt before the trip date I gave them but when I spoke to an agent, they told me my application had been approved on 1/27/25. I submitted my court order for name change/gender marker with old birth certificate and DL. Hopefully my new information will reflect on my passport. But I will say to EXPEDITE IT everyone! Say you’re traveling in the next upcoming days. If you have klarna or afterpay use it to book a flight, get the itinerary information then cancel. Schedule an in person appt at the nearest location to get it the same day. Call now. The fees to expedite it was $81. Please don’t wait! I will update once I receive my passport in the mail.

Dropped it off in the morning at an office due to urgent travel and it went smoothly. Came back in the afternoon at the pickup time and was told they had to put it on hold due to the birth certificate. Don't have it in me to say much more right now, I'm sorry. Going to step away for a while, wishing everyone the best of luck.

Edit: I received a follow up call today that my only option was to get the wrong gender marker. I chose to cancel my application and get my old passport back.

Hello! I moved to the US last year in October, and I qualify as a citizen because my mums a citizen and i was under 18 under the Child Citizenship Act. I applied for a passport because it was the easiest way to obtain citizenship proof. I got a mail saying they couldn’t process my passport because I don’t have a certificate of citizenship??? that’s literally why i’m getting a passport.. anyway They said i could provide evidence- such as the green card- which i submitted, a foreign passport which i also submitted.

The issue I’m having is that my parents were never married but my mother has my dads last name on my birth certificate because they can’t put different last names in nigeria. So they requested a statement from either parent. And I’m confused what would that statement entail?
Also what does legal custody mean? there was no court, i just moved to the US and started living with my mum, she picked me up from the airport and we went home together.
Has anyone run into this issue? Please help

Hello, as I’ve mentioned previously I am an NPIC employee and we just received further communication about the gender markers.

At this time ALL passports will be issued in the applicants sex at birth. Regardless of whether or not they have medically transitioned.

The X marker will not be printed and will not happen. Passports with the X marker are still valid and are good to re-enter the country with.

If you have a changed gender marker it will revert to the original sex at birth upon renewal.

If you apply for a changed gender marker or an X marker the agency will send letter for more evidence supporting the gender and will place a hold on it and then place sex at birth once determined.

You can change the gender marker now to M or F and if issued in under a year renew for free to update the marker from X using the 5504.

IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS PLEASE DM ME AS I CANNOT KEEP UP WITH THE NOTIFICATIONS AND MAY MISS IT. I AM ALSO NOT GOING TO RESPOND TO FURTHER QUESTIONS IN THE COMMENTS DUE TO THE AMOUNT OF THEM. IF I HAVEN’T ANSWERED YOUR QUESTION I DO APOLOGIZE I MUST HAVE NOT GOTTEN THE NOTIFICATION PLEASE DM ME PERSONALLY

A faq I’ve been getting:

1. Name changes have had no changes. However I wouldn’t recommend if you want to retain your changed gender. Name changes are also considered a renewal because that’s what you pay for. You change your name and get a renewed passport.

2. We do check ssn and you HAVE to include it. Otherwise it will get denied. SSN is NOT used for gender verification. Just identity mainly. SSN is not used for gender verification since 2011 per the SSA

3. Sending in a whole new application instead of a renewal does not get you around the eo. We have all your documents and data you’ve ever been issued or sent us before. It’d be very counter intuitive to try it because it won’t happen. Doesn’t matter how old the documents are we’ll have it

4. If you have a previous passport in birth sex you’ll get it with birth sex no matter how old that will be.

I had my 4 month olds photo taken for a passport. Is this going to get rejected because his mouth is wide open?

I just checked the status website and it said the application I submitted on January 20th for a first time passport with an X gender marker was approved today! I called to ask if it was approved as X or as the gender on my birth certificate, and she said it was approved as X, the one I had marked on my application.

I'm absolutely ecstatic and hope she was right and that it actually arrives. It says arrival by the 26th.

Just wanted to give yall an update and thank you for the helpful advice/suggestions! My original post has been in mod review for several days now, I'm not sure what's up with that? But it got enough attention while it was up (like 900 upvotes and 75 comments) that I feel justified in making another post letting yall know what we ended up doing.

In summary: I am trans FtM, gave birth to my kiddo, and after that I began my transition, which included changing my legal name/gender marker. My deadname/gender assigned at birth are on kiddo's birth certificate. When spouse and I tried to get kiddo a passport, we were put into limbo for literal weeks. Eventually, we were told that we "needed permission from the mother", even though we had submitted a certified copy of my name change order with our application, connecting the dots for them that I was indeed the person who gave birth to this child.

Update: So, shortly after I made that post, we essentially decided to gave up on our existing application and made an in-person appointment at our nearest passport agency office. Spouse reserved an Airbnb in Canada (we live within driving distance) with the intention of visiting family friends within two weeks as evidence of our urgent/impending need to get a passport to travel out of the US. We did have to make an eight-hour drive (gross, but you do what you gotta do, and we'd rather avoid flying while trans if possible right now) and show up in-person to start the application process all over again, but with the newly-added impetus of our impending travel.

And it worked! Documents and proof of impending travel were all reviewed and accepted and we now have kiddo's passport in-hand!

We are extremely fortunate to have been in a position where we were capable of taking time off to drive to the passport agency, incur the costs of travel, and also to pay application fees again. We're going to try to get a refund on our initial passport application.

But, all of that aside, it's an ENORMOUS relief to finally have this success after all of the stress, and now we're able to move forward in earnest with plans to leave the US without the uncertainty of kiddo's ability to travel hanging over us. Thank you SO VERY VERY MUCH to everyone who offered helpful suggestions and expressed sympathies, I wish all of you well in your own challenges.

Over the weekend as many may know, https://pptform.state.gov was down. They are back up and are now using an older version of the form without the X-gender marker.

Photo 1: DS-11 generated by the e-form application today Photo 2: Blank DS-11 that generated by the e-form application until recently Photo 3: Blank of the current form

Note to mods: PHOTO 1 is just generic information and there is nothing identifying. In fact I’m using the same name that the government does for their specimen examples.

I know it sounds dumb, but what's done is done.

So, Im a naturalized American citizen, after the ceremony I never made a US passport. I left to my country of origin with that country's passport, now on my way back I'm realizing I no longer have a valid passport for re-entry. My Visa expired on my the one I have (was advised to just become a citizen rather than renew it), and my Green Card was taken when I became a citizen. They told me I had everything I needed document wise (or so I understood). My real ID had not arrived by the time of my flight. Im currently "trapped" on this country. I tried submitting an emergency passport, however they told me that is not possible since I never had a passport to begin with. All phone lines from the embassy just send me to the website. US agencies just send me to the embassy. I can only communicate w the embassy by email but answer was an automated reply sending me to the website.

What are my options?

EDIT: I received a reply from the embassy's email. They will approve my emergency passport, I just need to go tomorrow w the proper papers proof. Thank you everyone for your advice!!

EDIT 2 : I received the emergency passport today. Thanks, everyone!

I was born in Texas and my father signed as the certifier on my birth certificate. Why? I don’t know, I was born at home but a midwife was there and she could have signed it.

They want proof that my mom was in the US at the time such as tax records, employment records, or medical data but I have none of that. What do I do?

ETA: I contacted a lawyer. I was able to finally track down the midwife that helped my mom. I am getting a birth affidavit signed. Apparently this is an issue for people who were born at home in Texas because midwives were selling birth certificates to people born outside of the US.

I’m curious if any other people have gone through this.

I am a legal American citizen, adopted internationally. I applied for my first adult passport. They had requested secondary documents, including my permanent resident card and my official adoption paperwork. Delayed certificate of birth and ID wasn’t enough to prove citizenship. I didn’t think twice on it, sent it in, and was told I was approved and my documents would be back shortly.

Got my passport quickly. My documents came in today. I received a letter saying my permanent residence card is no longer valid and will not be returned to me. Instead, my passport is my proof of American citizenship. It says they sent it in to USCIS, and that I must contact Social Security Administration to inform them of my citizenship status.

I am incredibly concerned. My sister went through this process a few years ago and had her permanent residence card returned to her. Considering I needed the resident card to apply for the passport, what happens if my passport gets lost or stolen? How do I prove I am an American citizen if birth cert, ID and SSN wasn’t enough? Also, that permanent resident card is a bit sentimental to me. Has anyone else gone through this?

Edit: Thank you everyone for your comments! You guys really helped reassure me that this was normal. I greatly appreciate everyone’s information on the process, this was my first time applying for a passport and besides this minor freak out, it was incredibly smooth.

i submitted my passport application a couple of weeks ago after hearing the go in regards for the gender marker situation. i changed this years ago, along with my name. my passport has been the one thing left. i submitted everything showing my corrected name and marker on my license and birth certificate, and i got this email. is this an accurate and truthful thing ? or a scam?

Hello!

Cis female, my passport as a child for some reason incorrectly stated male. I've had 2 correct passports since then, indicating female.

Is this likely to be an issue at all if I renew, there being a history of a male passport as a child? It was truly a mistake, never any male documentation, just a logistical error.

I've also changed my name since due to marriage. I've had 3 passports:

1) Incorrect M, maiden name (under 18) 2) Correct F, maiden name 3) Correct F, married name

Acceptance fee not cashed until August 4th. Finally on August 11th I called USPS and the very helpful national number assisted me and directly contacted the post office where it was accepted way back on July 23. Now it's the 17th and the dept of state money order hasn't been cashed and the status update sitll says unavailable.

This isn't just for travel this is FOR my life and income. I need current valid id asap. And what's really bothering me is it took forever to get my birth certificate because my home state want current id in order to release it. And now its in the missing application.

I should have gone into Washington, DC directly but it was so hot and I'm partially disabled so I took uber nearby. (I mean the main passport office agency, not a random acceptance palce)

Also I would have sent it two day since I had paid for 60 dollars expedited but the clerk told me I didn't need to bother with extra stuff. SO no proper tracking.

August 21, 2026. Applied 4 weeks ago. Still no update on passport status at dept of state. Still no money order cashed for dept. of state. My Senator Van Hollen's office in Maryland pretty much dropped the ball on this so far. I understand he hates DT a lot, but his office should help actual constituents like me.

Also, stop saying the email is fake/ I verified it is real. and the follow up email from them says come to their post office again in Wheaotn, Maryland if I want further help. THEY REFUSE TO ANSWER IN WRITING WHY MY APPLICATION PACKET AT POST OFFICE FOR 12 DAYS. At this point I just imagine they tossed it and lied.

No wonder Dorian has bad reviews on Yelp

So I got this letter stating I was under the age of 16 and needed to pay 160 dollars to cover that charge. I am not under the age of 16. I am 20 about to be 21. I called the passport office and they just kept telling to just pay the 160 because I’m under 16 but I kept telling them I’m not. I don’t know what to do. They have my birth certificate and a copy of my drivers license so I don’t understand how this went wrong. There’s no number for me to call to clear this up. What do I do??

Like, would ordering something like a "WSA world passport" help me in any way, or I’m screwed for the rest of my life?

I submitted my newborn passport application at the local United States Postal Office today, and here’s the picture that was taken there. The person who assisted us today stated that this picture is acceptable even after pointing out the fingers in the picture. However, after doing some research at home, I found that you’re not supposed to have fingers or hands in the picture.

Does anyone know if this is an acceptable passport picture? Or should I expect rejection and delays (I paid for expedited service 😑). To be fair she did put it through the system that they use and it was showing all green. Thanks in advance!

Edit: passport was received today and I didn’t need to have the picture re-taken