DHS updates policy to recognize only two genders

The Department of Homeland Security announced it would update its U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services policy manual to recognize only two genders.

The USCIS Policy Manual, which is described by the agency as a centralized online repository for immigration policies, said in a press release that it is returning to its historical policy of recognizing two biological sexes.

“There are only two sexes — male and female,” DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin declared. “President Trump promised the American people a revolution of common sense, and that includes making sure that the policy of the U.S. government agrees with simple biological reality.”

‘Our immigration system is … not a place to promote and coddle.’

DHS said it was remaining consistent with one of the president’s first executive orders from January, titled Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.

The order stated that ideologues across the country have denied the “biological reality” of sex through increased legal battles, as well as social coercion. The goal, the executive order continued, is to stop men’s access to single-sex spaces and activities designed for women. This includes domestic abuse shelters, prisons, and even “workplace showers.”

McLaughlin added, “Proper management of our immigration system is a matter of national security, not a place to promote and coddle an ideology that permanently harms children and robs real women of their dignity, safety, and well-being.”

USCIS will henceforth determine sex by what is labeled on a person’s birth certificate, or failing that, by using secondary evidence. Secondary evidence is defined as evidence that may demonstrate a fact is more likely than not to be true but does not derive from a primary, authoritative source.

Examples of secondary evidence would be supplemental documentation, or sometimes, testimony alone.

The department also noted it would not issue documents that have a blank sex field or have a sex different than what is labeled on a person’s birth certificate.

This issue becomes more complex as it pertains to immigration due to the vast number of countries that allow one’s sex to be changed on official documents. These countries include many in the European Union, such as: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, and Sweden.

Canada and most South American countries are included in this list, but changes remain illegal in Russia, most African countries, and several Central American countries as well.

According to Equaldex, which maps the legality of legal gender changes across the world, 60 countries allow such changes, with 29 requiring gender surgery in order to gain recognition.

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