Hunter Schafer is detailing her “harsh reality check” amid the Trump administration. After being inaugurated for his non-consecutive second term, on January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that, in part, declared that only two genders will recognized by the United States, male and female as assigned at birth.
Schafer, who is a trans woman, has now shared during an 8-minute, 34-second-long TikTok story how the order has already impacted her life. The “Euphoria” actress shared that her passport, which she recently had replaced after her purse and its contents were stolen in Barcelona when she was filming there in summer 2024, now declares her gender to be male.
Schafer shared that she had her gender markers changed when she was a teenager, and since then, all of her government issued IDs, including driver’s licenses and passports have listed her gender as female. This new passport, she said, is her first government-issued identification, other than her birth certificate, that lists her as a male.
“I had a bit of a harsh reality check today, and I felt like it’s important to share with whoever is listening,” Schafer said in the video. “I’m not making this post to fear-monger, or to create drama, or receive consolation, I don’t need it. But I do think it’s worth posting to sort of note the reality of the situation and that it’s happening. I was shocked. I just didn’t think it was actually going to happen. I want to acknowledge my privilege, not only as a celebrity trans woman who is white.”
She added, “I pass, and it still happened. No one, no matter how wealthy or white or pretty or whatever, is excluded.”
Schafer clarified that it is not the gender initial on her passport that is the entire issue; rather, it is the erasure of her and other trans people’s identities as a whole.
“I don’t give a fuck that they put an ‘M’ on my passport. It doesn’t change really anything about me or my transness, however, it does make life a little harder,” she said. “I’m pretty sure it’s going to come along with having to out myself to border patrol agents … much more often than I would like to or is really necessary. And thinking about other trans women or other trans people who this might be happening to.”
She concluded, “We are never going to stop existing. I’m never going to stop being trans. A letter on a passport can’t change that, fuck this administration.”
Schafer previously told GQ that she doesn’t want to be identified solely by her transition story. The actress said that she has turned down “tons of trans roles” to not be typecast. “I just don’t want to do it. I don’t want to talk about it. It’s a privilege, but it’s been very intentional,” Schafer said.
She later added to IndieWire, “I mean, that article got a lot of pick-up, so I think the message was sent to a degree. I look back on it, and I definitely meant what I said, but also, just right now, this, like, ebbs and flows for me all the time. I want to make stuff about trans people someday, [but] hopefully, the next time I do a role or something like that, it will be for something that I’m a part of making.”
