The article states that employees of the State Department received an order to "halt any applications requesting a gender marker of 'X' and to stop any applications where the applicant seeks to change their gender marker."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in an email obtained by journalists, instructed department staff to adhere to new strict regulations regarding official documentation.
Rubio's directive stipulates that official documents, including passports and consular birth certificates issued abroad, must use "sex, not gender," as reported by The Guardian.
Trump's executive order titled "Protecting Women from Gender Ideological Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth in the Federal Government" mandates that only "immutable biological classification of an individual as male or female" be used in government identification documents, the newspaper notes.
Passports with an "X" designation remain valid, although there may be issues when updating them, the White House informed the news site Notus on January 21. According to Rubio's email, as stated by the article's authors, guidance regarding existing passports containing the "X" gender marker "will be communicated through other channels."