The Social Security Administration sent out an “emergency message” on Friday that will stop allowing people to change their sex in the records of the federal agency.
In an internal message, which was first reported by Law Dork, the agency notes that these changes come “in accordance with the recent President Actions under Executive Order, ‘Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.’”
The executive order, which President Donald Trump signed within hours of taking office, declares that there are only “two sexes, male and female,” and redefines sex by the reproductive cells a person will produce upon reaching adulthood.
The order tasked agencies across the government to amend policies to reflect what it calls “the biological reality of sex,” a definition that denies the legal recognition of trans and nonbinary people. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has already told State Department staff to suspend all applications for passports with an “X” gender and any changes to a person’s sex marker.
Now the Social Security Administration’s message states that the policy change is “effective immediately” and encompasses “changes to the sex field on the NUMIDENT.”
Though a Social Security card does not display a person’s gender, the SSA does maintain NUMIDENT (numerical identification system) records and includes a person’s name, date of birth, gender and other data points. The SSA keeps demographic records for statistical purposes, and sometimes SSA gender data is used for identity verification from third parties.
The agency did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment on Monday.
The agency’s message on Friday reversed a 2022 Biden administration policy allowing people to self-select their gender in Social Security records without any barriers. Nearly a decade earlier, under President Barack Obama, the SSA was praised by trans advocacy groups for eliminating its requirement that trans people show proof of gender-affirming surgery in order to amend their records.
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The “emergency” rule is just the latest in a series of actions taken by federal agencies in order to comply with Trump’s various anti-trans executive orders. It is important to note that none of the orders themselves are legally binding.
Within Trump’s first two weeks in office, he has signed orders barring federally funded hospitals and clinics from providing gender-affirming health care to trans people younger than 19. Already some medical providers have stopped providing care, and a memo shared with HuffPost shows that federal health insurance plans swiftly halted coverage of that care for youth as well.
The acting commissioner of Social Security, Michelle King, was appointed by Trump on his first day in office.