Yeah, there is a lot of bad shit that the Trump Administration and his lackeys are doing right now. Lots and lots of bad shit. Maybe the Stranger should have thought of that before they went with "Uncommitted Delegates," or had Hannah Kreig writing about "Genocide Joe" over and over... or had their old news editor repeatedly defend a former council-member that was actively campaigning to elect Donald Fucking Trump.

You all got played into losing sight of what this last election was really about and now we all pay the price. Congratulations.

Trans people should get the M or F for the sex classification they identify with. Non binary must choose one or the other.

Sex markers were first introduced to passport information in 1977, due to the rise of androgynous fashion. Brows began to furrow about such matters in 1968. Prior to photos being added to passport there was a written description of the individual. Androgyne made the photos a less sure predictor that the person presenting the passport was in fact the person the passport represents. Immigration officials being the most concerned about this.

Now passports have scannable information, which saves on data entry and allows quick processing of information. The sex markers could be replaced with bio-metric information stored on the passport. This would allow for immigration officials to compare facial, iris and/or fingerprints that they scan at the point of entry with what is stored on the passport and know with a great deal of certainty the individual is who their passport says they are. Not that this solves the issue we have today. I think tolerance for the trans identified with accurate passport information in situations where it counts is more important than the validation that comes with conflating sex and gender for the individual.

I do use my passport for identification when I am in a forgiven country, well past immigration. Where I spend most of my time, they are concerned with my visa status and number for tracking purposes, not with me being who I am.

@1, verbatim and in full, should always be the very first comment on every Stranger post which mentions Trump, every time, for as long as his hatefully bigoted policies harm innocent persons. That will be many years — if not decades — after he finally leaves office.

The second paragraph especially always needs repeating, so I’ll do so here:

“You all got played into losing sight of what this last election was really about and now we all pay the price.”

@2: I identify as an NBA power foreward. Can I declare my height to be 7' 2"?

One of several worst cases would be seizing passports they don't like when people reenter the country. Presumably women who don't dress in pink enough and have enough pony tails would get searched. This is such a fiasco (as if that separates it from the rest of this admin's activities)

@5: More so that if someone has gone through sexual reassignment surgery, what sense does it make to put the prior sex? It's impractical and mean.

While I agree with the premise that Trump is being mean and unfair here, I'd much rather dwell on the ever increasing violence (daily it seems) due to guns and personal grievance in which bystanders also die. Seattle is far from immune from this. Ghost guns are making the matter even more complicated. The wealth gap continues to grow as well. I think these issues have a greater resonance with the general public.

@7: Here's an idea: Lets just not label anyone that way. I mean, they aren't going to be doing a genetic test on people passing through TSA lines. And some people can present as anything they want with a quick costume change in the restroom.

@3 No, you do not ever want to encode biometric markers in any portable document. What one does is link the serial number of the document to a biometrics file on a highly secured server. You match the document to the biometrics to the document by scanning the person when they present their document, and then send the scan to that secured server to be verified. You can't change a person's fingerprints of retina scan. That's why you NEVER encode them in a document, and used very good encryption when handling them electronically.

For reference, I hold certifications in network and physical security, and have been an administrator of the biometric security systems of a high security data center.

@10: Yes, if biometric data is fraudulently associated with another person, you're totally screwed. Is that right?