Woman in Canada, but not for the Trump administration

Alice Siregar has a certain attachment to the United States. In the last months, this trans Canada-American woman would have wanted to go there, in particular in order to be able to help her father following the death of her grandmother, which occurred last year.

But Donald Trump’s return to the Presidency of the United States now complicates the possibility for her to return.

It is that the American government refuses to issue him a new consular report from birth abroad (CRBA) with his current sex marker, which would allow him to update his passport and would reflect the marker F which is now on all its official documents in Quebec.

A few weeks after the re -election of Donald Trump, Alice Siregar, born in Montreal of an American father, sends a request to update her CROBwhich is necessary in order to also be able to update its passport which matters.

I wanted to do it before the new administration took controlshe explains.

For months, Montrealer receives no response. Last April, it is finally answered: if it is possible to modify the name appearing on its CROBit is not possible to change the sex marker, due to a presidential decree signed on the day of the entry according to President Trump.

The decree in question, entitled Defending women against extremism of gender ideology and restoring biological truth within the federal government (Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government) mainly comes to rule that the kind of a person is officially the one assigned to him at birth.

The department can only issue and modify CROB With a sex indicator M or F which corresponds to the biological sex of the applicant at birth.

This answer is a shock for the principal concerned.

They took my money. They told me that it was not refundable and that they no longer changed gender markers.

The one who is also known on social networks under the pseudonym Alice in Winterland However, does not let go of the song.

Because she insists that we change her gender marker, her file is not considered by the US State Department to be completed. This means that the agency has had certain documents for several months, including its Quebec birth certificate and its CROB current.

A measure suspended for passports, but not the CROB

A glow of hope appeared in June, when a Massachusetts judge issued an injunction suspending the Donald Trump decree with regard to the change of sex marker on passports under certain conditions.

The State Department, however, told Ms. Siregar that this injunction does not apply to CROBinformation he repeated on Radio-Canada.

And CROB (or any other citizenship certificate) updated would usually be necessary in order to adequately renew the passport of Alice Siregar.

L’ACLUthe American rights and freedoms league, which is at the origin of the pursuit of Massachusetts, argues that it is not necessary to have a birth certificate updated to be able to modify its passport as part of the injunction pronounced in June. Information that the State Department has not explicitly confirmed when asked about it.

The US government site specifies that it is possible to apply for passports or request the replacement of a passport without having the adequate sex marker on its birth certificate.

If we need more information from you, we will contact you after your requestcan we read.

However, this policy on birth certificates also concerns the CROB.

Maybe I can have the right kind on my passport, but it’s not certainjudge Alice Siregar.

The latter is certain that if we disputed before The same judges the application of the presidential decree on other documents – such as CROB -, these magistrates would set up an injunction similar to that in force for passports.

There would be a good case to do. If I had the means, I would take that to the court, but it’s a whole process, it costs money, it takes time …

[Les ONG] ACLU et Lambda Legal are so busy with court battles that they cannot take care of my caseadds Alice Siregar, who acknowledges that people in her situation-trans people born outside the United States and having dual nationality-are a minority.

This consultant in a technological company therefore says she should turn to the private sector and is currently waiting for a lawyer’s response to the United States.

A situation which turns out to be frustrating for her, not only because of the cost associated with this approach, but also because, in normal times, this Montrealer goes to the other side of the border many times a year, whether to go and see his wife’s family, to visit friends or as part of his involvement with the Dyke Marcha famous lesbian organization.

Usually, I go quite often, [New York] was a second city, a second house for me. I lived there a few yearsshe says.

A humiliation

Alice Siregar could try to enter the United States as a Canadian. If she crossed the border in February to participate in a demonstration against fascism in New York, she no longer advocates this option, considering that there is risks as a tourist.

You can be refused the entrance. […] I don’t want to risk the fact that the border clock [catégorise] As a trans and decides that, no, we will not let me enter, or I am going to hold me.

Montrealer also has a doubt about the possibility of entering the United States as American without passport.

I do not have my birth certificate to prove that I am American, the government has it. I have no paper that proves that I am American. I do not know how they are going to do with that, especially that we know that they have already owned American citizens now too. Do I want to risk that?

If he became that the sex marker of her passport could finally be modified as she wishes, Alice Siregar admits that she would still limit her trips to the United States due to the situation current, with prices and authoritarianism which is now well anchored in the United States.

Even as a citizen, it is a riskshe judges. As a trans woman, going to the United States is a bit counter-intuitive.

All in all, these obstacles are, according to her, both a superficial pitfall and humiliation.

The fact of not being able to recognize its genre like that on our documents, it forces us every day to get our identifications every dayshe explains.

It is a humiliation, it is made to force us to say that we are trans. And it is also to force us to tell us that we are not the genre that we are, to force this view and to limit what we can be.

Having gender markers is more problems than that in order. It forces us every time we out [révéler] As a trans or non -binary person.

Contacted by Radio-Canada, the United States Consulate in Montreal and the United States Embassy in Canada did not answer our questions.