SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – Travel can be stressful, especially if you’re waiting for necessary documents like a passport.
“Luckily, I ended up getting my passport,” Orion Hodge said.
Hodge transitioned in 2019.
The soon-to-be college grad was updating his passport for an Australia trip with his family after they got their degree.
“My name was changed but, my gender was not changed. So it states my legal name - Orion Hodge - but, does not state the correct pronouns or gender,” Hodge said.
Hodge sent ABC 10News a photo of the new passport, which came in the mail at the end of last month. ABC 10News blacked out any personal and confidential information.
Their legal name changed, but the gender marker still shows female instead of the male marker they applied for.
“I was expecting my gender not to be changed and, like, I was mentally prepared for that. But, it was still pretty disappointing to see,” Hodge said.
As 10News previously reported — Hodge waited and wondered if the changes to the document would happen at all.
“The reason it’s being held is I switched it from female to male,” Hodge told us in February. “I’m just trying to go on a vacation with my family, and I want to know if that’s even possible.”
Hodge’s stepdad told ABC 10News in February that the application for Orion’s passport made it into the State Department system on Jan. 22 after a clerical error was fixed.
Just two days before, President Donald Trump made this statement in his inauguration speech.
"As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female,” Trump said in his speech.
With the President’s executive order, the State Department put a pause on passport applications with the X gender marker. A State Department spokesperson told ABC 10News the order says U.S. government identification documents have to reflect someone’s sex that’s defined in the order.
The spokesperson also said, “We are only issuing U.S. passports with a male or female sex marker that matches the applicant's biological sex as defined in the executive order.”
With their new passport, Hodge hopes they don’t run into any new stress with their international travel.
“I’m going to be really frustrated if there are problems at the airport or if there’s like legal problems because of it,” Hodge said. “Because it’s literally out of my hands and I tried to make it according to who I am. But I guess that just didn’t work out.”
