Reminders to Reflect Binary Sex Marker on US Federal Applications and Forms

in Immigration Actions Trump 2.0
October 17th, 2025

Various US federal systems and forms continue to be updated by agencies in accordance with the January 20, 2025, Executive Order Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism And Restoring Biological Truth To The Federal Government. This EO mandates that federal departments recognize gender strictly as a male-female binary determined by biological sex at birth and seeks to replace instances of “gender” with “sex” on official federal online and paper application forms. International students and scholars/employees should be mindful to select or reflect their biological sex at birth on all federal forms including but not limited to:

  • All Department of State (DOS) visa application forms
  • I-901 SEVIS fee payments
  • I-94 US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) arrival and departure records
  • I-9 Employment Eligibility Forms and federal tax returns
  • US Social Security number applications
  • All US Citizenship and Immigration (CIS) application forms (including but not limited to I-765 employment authorization application and the I-539 extension or change of status application)

This EO also mandates changes to US federal systems and forms supporting only US federal government activities (including SEVIS). It does not direct changes to local US state, private or foreign systems or forms (including non-US passports). However, CBP is now requiring any airline with flights arriving at a US port of entry to forward passenger data using the same binary sex marker effective October 14, 2025.

Contact your ISSO advisor with any questions.