CBP directed airlines to drop X gender markers from pre-departure passenger data, barring non-binary designation for international travelers

On July 7, 2025, U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued a Carrier Liaison Program Bulletin directing all airlines operating international flights to or from the United States to submit only "M" (male) or "F" (female) sex markers in the Advanced Passenger Information System pre-departure data feed, with enforcement beginning October 14, 2025, after a 90-day informed compliance period. The bulletin required airlines to return an error for any X submission and resubmit with a binary marker, while explicitly exempting carriers from penalty if they substituted M or F for a passenger's actual X passport designation. CBP had formally required binary markers in its regulations since APIS was created, but had previously accepted X without error after the State Department began issuing X passports in 2022; the July 7 bulletin formally closed that gap.

The timing was significant: CBP issued the bulletin shortly after a federal court expanded a preliminary injunction requiring the State Department to continue issuing X passports to a broader class of plaintiffs. The Identity Project (Papers, Please!), a civil liberties organization that tracks government travel documentation practices, observed that the sequencing appeared designed to frustrate the court's relief by creating practical obstacles for anyone holding an X passport — travelers would be required to have their legal sex misrepresented in federal pre-departure records, with no public guidance issued to affected travelers about how to navigate the requirement. The bulletin implemented Executive Order 14168, signed January 20, 2025, directing federal agencies to recognize only binary sex classifications.

The policy created a structural burden for transgender and nonbinary travelers with X passports: airlines must misrepresent their sex in federal government records or refuse to submit data correctly on their behalf, and travelers have no recourse within the APIS system to correct the discrepancy. The CBP action was part of a coordinated campaign across multiple agencies to erase non-binary gender recognition from federal records, including parallel actions by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVIS gender marker update, July 24), USCIS (policy manual revisions), and TSA (sex-marker final rule, May 21).