Hunter Schafer is finding power in her voice.
After the Euphoria star revealed that her new United States passport listed her gender as male despite holding female-marked government documents for years, she shared why she decided to speak out.
“It was a sort of spur-of-the-moment thing,” Hunter exclusively told E! Newson the Film Independent Spirit Awards red carpet Feb. 22. “I’m still processing what’s happened. But in the moment, I felt like it was important to share what was going on.” (For more from stars at the Film Independent Spirit Awards, tune into E! News tonight, Feb. 24, at 11 p.m.)
The 26-year-old, who came out as transgender in the ninth grade, shared the update in a Feb. 21 TikTok Story after receiving her new passport.
“To specify,” she added, “my gender marker was first changed in my teens when I first got my driver’s license and then my passports following—all have been female since then.”
Hunter said that when she applied for a new passport after losing hers in Spain last year, she marked her gender as female on the application. However, she revealed that when it was picked up, “the marker was changed to male.”
While Hunter stressed that her TikTok video wasn’t posted to “create drama” or “receive consolation,” she believed it was “worth posting the reality of the situation.”
The Cuckoo actress’ news comes one month after President Donald Trump signed a Jan. 20 executive order requiring agencies to only recognize genders assigned at birth. A spokesperson for the State Department told E! News in a statement that “due to privacy laws and restrictions, we do not comment on specific cases.”
However, the representative added, “The Department is implementing the President’s Executive Orders and executing on administration priorities. We are only issuing U.S. passports with a male or female sex marker that matches the applicant’s biological sex as defined in the Executive Order.”
But Hunter emphasized that she doesn’t “give a f–k that they put an M on my passport.”
She asserted, “It doesn’t change really anything about me or my transness.”
Meanwhile, stars like Nava Mau also reflected on the policies’ impact on the trans community.
“It’s really evident that we’re facing really, really harsh policies from the administration,” the Baby Reindeer actress told E! at the Film Independent Spirit Awards. “It’s important to recognize the ways that we must be mindful and the ways that these kinds of policies affect the most vulnerable among us.”
As she put it, “It’s not something we can ignore.”
-Reporting by Sharon Carpenter
