“Camins Bretts, who is 61 and lives in Seattle, has crossed the Canada-United States border many times for work, family and romantic partners. But because he’s a transgender man, at least half a dozen of those trips ended in him being detained by U.S. border officials. 

“At various points Bretts has been pulled aside and questioned for traveling with identity documents that list him as male, as well as papers that identified him as female. Because of his gender expression, he has frequently been accused of lying about who he is. To find a solution, Bretts applied for a passport with an ‘X’ gender marker on January 22. 

“He was denied. By that time, the Trump administration had begun blocking new passports for trans Americans. 

“All of this feels familiar to Bretts. It reminds him of how Jewish people were kept from accessing legitimate travel documents when Nazi Germany was in power — leaving Jews across multiple countries unable to flee rising violence. It reminds him of what happened to his family. 

“He’s not alone. As the Trump administration targets marginalized groups, including migrants and trans people, LGBTQ+ Jewish people told The 19th that they increasingly feel that history is in danger of repeating itself.”

“‘It’s the same story, in miniature, of what happened to my family. They had the wrong thing stamped on their identity documents,’ he said. ‘I’m not expecting what’s going on in the U.S. to get to the point of, you know, impromptu death squads … but nonetheless, I, like many other people with non-matching identity documents, am now stuck.’”


Jewish Americans feel echoes of history in transgender passport restrictions