The Brief

Louie figured he was taking a gamble when he submitted his passport application after President Trump's inauguration.

He had a passport, which was valid for another two years. But at the end of December, a New York state court approved Louie's request to change his name and gender marker. As a result, he needed a new passport — regardless of who was in office.

Louie asked NPR to identify him by his first name because he fears harassment and retaliation at work.

Louie, 24, identifies as transmasculine. At the end of 2024 and early January, he changed his driver's license and Social Security card to reflect the female-to-male gender marker update. It went smoothly, he told NPR.

The trouble started in January, when he submitted his application for a new passport — just hours after Trump took office on Jan. 20.

The same day, Trump issued an executive order stating that the federal government recognizes only two sexes, male and female. That led the State Department to eliminate the X gender as an option and to suspend its policy allowing transgender, intersex and nonbinary people to update the sex field of their passports.

This executive order has upended the lives of individuals in prisons, at schools, seeking health care and in sports. It's now disrupting the lives of some trans, nonbinary and intersex people when they travel.

An estimated 1.3 million adults in the U.S. identify as transgender or gender nonconforming, and as many as 5 million Americans may be intersex, according to a brief published last month from the Williams Institute, a think tank at UCLA Law School that researches sexual orientation and gender identity.

Those who spoke to NPR for this story say the policy change is yet another example of the Trump administration's persecution of the LGBTQ+ community by creating new barriers in their daily lives.

The changes resulting from the executive order also mean that the gender identity of trans, nonbinary and intersex people won't be reflected in official documents, they say, forcing them to "out" themselves every time they present their passports — heightening their distress and fear and adding unpredictable logistical and safety challenges for travel and even everyday life.

"As a transgender person in this country … this fight for our freedom, our recognition, our ability to just live our lives, this isn't new," says Westley Ebling, who identifies as a transmasculine nonbinary person who faced issues getting a new passport recently. "But this scale of attacks is just horrid. It has been a really hard time, to just feel that a country is so against you just for trying to live."

Travelers walk through Salt Lake City International Airport on May 24, 2024, in Salt Lake City.

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Passport applications thrown into disarray

About a week after Trump signed the order, Secretary of State Marco Rubio suspended  passport applications of Americans who chose X as their gender or who were trying to update their document's gender marker. Now, under new policies, the State Department will only issue passports that say male or female and that match the applicant's sex at birth.

The State Department did not respond to NPR's questions about the new policies and their enforcement.

NPR spoke to LGBTQ+ advocates as well as seven people who identify as trans, nonbinary or intersex who have been directly impacted by the changed passport policy or who have put plans to apply for a new passport and to travel on hold as a result of the confusing new rules.

In Louie's case, he received a new passport with the correct name change. But the gender marker was still "female," like his old passport. Louie says he wasn't surprised, given the State Department's policy changes, but is still upset and frustrated and unsure what it means for him. (Euphoria actress Hunter Schafer shared on TikTok that she also received a new passport that reflected her sex assigned at birth, not her current gender marker, which is on her other documents.)

Louie is now rethinking his international travel destinations and is concerned about how even interactions in the U.S. with law enforcement, for example, could become a problem when his passport lists one gender and his other legal documents another.

Trump's passport policy already faces at least one federal lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union. It argues that the executive order and passport policy are unlawful, unconstitutional and "unmoored from scientific and medical reality."

The American Medical Association supports policies "that allow for a sex designation or change of designation on all government IDs to reflect an individual's gender identity, as reported by the individual." Designating sex as either male or female only fails to factor in "the medical spectrum of gender identity," risks stifling an individuals' self-expression and contributes to marginalization, the organization says.

In 2021, the State Department allowed people to make those gender marker changes without doctor certification and permitted applicants to select a third gender option, X, on their passport — after years of litigation. A passport with an X gender marker belonging to Dana Zzyym — who sued the State Department to get a passport that didn't say male or female — rests on a table in Fort Collins, Colo., on Oct. 27, 2021.

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What were the old passport policies?

The ability for people to change the sex field on their passports from male to female or vice versa has been allowed since 2010, including through the first Trump administration.

To qualify for that change, a doctor had to certify that the applicant was being treated for gender transition. In 2021, the State Department allowed people to make those changes without doctor certification and permitted applicants to select a third gender option, X, on their passport — after years of litigation. Thousands of gender X passports are believed to be in circulation now, but the State Department has not given a specific number.

Many countries such as Canada, Australia, India and New Zealand allow the "X" designation on their passports. Dozens of states already allow residents to update their driver's licenses to reflect their gender identity, with "X" being a gender marker option in 22 states and the District of Columbia. At least 16 states and D.C. allow an X gender marker option for updated birth certificates.

With the new passport policy in place, legal and advocacy groups say they are hearing from people like Louie who have received passports with the wrong gender markers and some whose passports and other legal documents are being held by the State Department.

Passports withheld, questions unanswered

All of these issues have left people like Westley Ebling with passport applications in a state of limbo, with no word from the State Department, and important documents, like old passports and birth certificates, withheld.

Ebling, a 26-year-old in Washington, D.C., submitted his passport renewal application with a gender marker change from female to male on Jan. 15. The application was received on Jan. 22, shortly after Trump issued his executive order.

Ebling wondered what this would mean for him, and when he contacted the office of his congressional representative, Democratic Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, he was told passport applications with gender changes were being suspended indefinitely.

"That's all the information I have," Ebling says. So for now, he doesn't have a new passport and his old one hasn't been returned. He and his partner have put travel plans on hold, he says.

Intersex Americans face particular challenges

The policy changes are having a profound impact on intersex people — those born with genitalia, chromosomes or reproductive organs that don't fit typical definitions for males or females — says Erika Lorshbough, the executive director of interACT, a nonprofit that advocates for the legal and civil rights of people with intersex traits.

Under Trump's Jan. 20 executive order — titled "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government" — the federal government now views "female" as meaning "a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell" and male as "a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell."

Intersex people, by definition, cannot fall into these categories, Lorshbough says.

"For folks in the intersex community, visibility has always been an issue. Every time you're trying to define sex in these perfectly binary terms, you're going to impact intersex people who, by definition, don't present with perfectly binary sex," Lorshbough says.

Some intersex people are assigned a sex at birth that doesn't match their development later in life, Lorshbough says. The addition of the X gender marker as an option on official documents helped intersex people feel better represented, she says.

So, what happens to intersex people looking to get or update a passport now?

It's unclear for Jennifer Sensiba, who lives in New Mexico.

Sensiba, 40, is intersex and was assigned male at birth.

"It became obvious when I was a teenager and young adult that I wasn't actually male. This was fine by me, because I never felt right in a male gender role," Sensiba wrote in an email to NPR. "I was often mistaken for a transgender man, and was sometimes accused of being a woman pretending to be a man in those days."

Sensiba eventually changed how she identifies, changed her name legally and updated her gender marker on her driver's license and other IDs.

But her birth certificate is still unchanged, so she has "mixed paperwork," as she calls it. As a young adult, Sensiba had a passport under her old name, but it has long since expired. She'd have to apply all over again for a new passport.

"From what I've been reading, if there's any discrepancy in paperwork, they go with the birth certificate," she said.

She's tried to get answers from her local congressman, but has heard nothing. The fact that these policy decisions have pulled her and other intersex people in a black hole, shows the federal government is "trying to regulate an issue that they know nothing about," she says.

Despite the chaos, uncertainty and fear people are feeling in the face of these changes, many say they will continue to live their lives as they have for years.

"These laws, executive orders, attempts to legislate trans people out of existence won't work," Louie, from New York, says. "We've won our rights over decades and we've existed before we were legally recognized by the state and we will continue to do so regardless of that."
Copyright 2025 NPR

Early every Saturday for the last three and a half years, William Campbell, 61, leaves his Silver Lake home to be at the Angels Flight station for the first ride at 6:45 a.m.

Campbell is one of a team of operators behind the proverbial wheel of the two near-identical funiculars — named Olivet and Sinai — that go up and down a 33% angle slope from Hill Street to Bunker Hill in downtown Los Angeles.

“You’re a part of living history,” said Campbell, who is dressed in an orange and black waistcoat and bow tie, and wears a bowler hat with a monarch butterfly on top. There’s a reason for that, he said mysteriously.

Angels Flight on Bunker Hill.

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Today, I am the first rider. Soon after, I am joined by a family visiting from Texas.

“I was just looking at a local tourist place, and I just saw this small, cute railway,” said Michael Nguyen, who was alongside his mother and sister. “I was like, oh, this looks interesting. And I saw that you can actually go on it. I was like, OK, that’s pretty dope.”

Masterminded by lawyer, politician and engineer Col. James Ward Eddy, the Angels Flight “hillevator” opened on New Year’s Eve 1901 as a way for people to travel up and down Bunker Hill, which was then the place where the city’s wealthy population lived.

The journey took them down to the streets and stores below and from 1917, Grand Central Market, with the first passengers paying just a penny fare for what was billed as the “shortest railway in America,” traveling just 298 feet.

When he’s not working his weekday full-time day job investigating animal cruelty and abuse, Campbell spends his spare time looking through online newspaper archives for any information about Angels Flight.

Angels Flight Railway.

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Angels Flight Railway.

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Originally located by the 3rd Street Tunnel — at the end of the block from where it is now — the train has been through several changes, as has Bunker Hill itself.

“All the wealthy people moved to Beverly Hills, and Brentwood, and Bel Air, and beyond. And all their wonderful Victorian mansions were turned into boarding houses, and it attracted a lower income, more diverse population, which resulted in blight and crime — at least according to the city,” Campbell said of Bunker Hill's transformation.

City officials authorized Bunker Hill to be all but razed in the 1950s and '60s, and Angels Flight was put into what was promised to be temporary storage for a year or two, despite protests from singer Peggy Lee and others.

The year was 1969. And it took nearly three decades for its return. Angels Flight welcomed passengers again in 1996 to its current location after test runs were made with cases of beer and soft drinks weighing 9,000 pounds. The cable cars were rebuilt exactly as before, but with modern safety requirements, such as Sinai having wheelchair space.

A 2001 accident in which one person died and seven were injured saw another long closure until 2010, and there was a derailment in 2014, which saw another short shuttering. But Angels Flight has been running ever since 2017, save the odd mechanical problem.

William Campbell.

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Angels Flight keepsakes made by William Campbell for riders to take.

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Campbell describes himself as a cheerleader for Angels Flight, and you can easily see why. During his shift he pins up a 1904 photo of the city’s landscape taken from an 80-foot-high observation tower at the original location, so people can compare it to the skyscraper skyline of today.

“At one time you could see all the way to Catalina,” he noted.

There is also a display about near-forgotten Bunker Hill folk artist Marcel Cavalla, and Campbell gives away Angels Flight bookmarks, stickers and maps, all of which he researches, designs and prints out of his own pocket.

One of his projects, old advertisements from 1901 to the 1940s, is displayed in the panels above the seats, and was installed a couple of months ago.

Interior of Angels Flight, showcasing old advertisements from 1901 to the 1940s that Campbell installed.

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One of the vintage ads for Catalina Carrier-Pigeon Service.

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There's everything from old Market Basket supermarket ads, to Barbara Stanwyck shilling for Lux toilet soap, to a standard power mower from John Bean manufacturing, to one for the Catalina Carrier Pigeon Service, which operated from 1894 to 1902, taking messages from Avalon to Bunker Hill.

And the monarch butterfly on his hat? That’s related to his Angels Flight “holy grail,” the one question he can’t definitively answer: why were they painted orange and black?

With that, Campbell grabs his binoculars and sees there are passengers waiting for a ride up, so I get into Olivet and wave goodbye as I travel down to Hill Street.

A group called Neighbors Helping Neighbors has been clearing overgrown weeds for free on fire survivors' empty lots in Altadena.

They’ve finished 10 with many more to go. They’re keeping at it not just to keep things tidy, but to avert another disaster as the region enters fire season — and their efforts are spreading. More than 200 homeowners have signed up, after hearing about the group from its Facebook page and through word of mouth.

“I'm 5 feet 2 inches tall, but there were weeds 6 and 8 feet tall,” said Antoinette “Toni” Bailey-Raines, the ringleader. She is also a co-founder of Altadena Talks Foundation, a nonprofit started in the wake of the Eaton Fire.

Bailey-Raines lives in San Dimas but grew up in Altadena. Her parents and sister all lost their homes in the Eaton Fire.

“I went to my parents' lot one day,” she said. “I loaded up the back of my car with my lawnmower, my blower, my rake, because I wanted to make sure their lot was cleaned up.”

It took seven hours, but she figured all that overgrown vegetation can't be good for Altadena with the fire season just around the corner.

And just like that, the idea for Neighbors Helping Neighbors was born.

Preventing another disaster

Antoinette “Toni” Bailey-Raines, founder of Neighbors Helping Neighbors.

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Antoinette “Toni” Bailey-Raines at one of the cleared lots.

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The very first lot, just south in Pasadena, was cleared in mid-April. Bailey-Raines said the property was getting notices from the city to clear the lot or face escalating fines. Pasadena conducts brush clearance inspections every spring and summer.

Toni said the family had moved to Mississippi after the Eaton Fire.

“You lost everything, and then somebody's gonna tell you they're gonna give you a fine because you have weeds on your lot and you're not even here to see that?” Bailey-Raines said.

That day, she rounded up a group of nine people, including her son and his friend. A neighbor across the street was suspicious at first, but eventually told her, "You have me for about an hour." He stayed for two.

The job took less than four hours.

A growing movement

On May 13, dozens of volunteers showed up in Altadena to clear seven lots in one morning.

One of them — a 14,000-square-foot lot — belongs to Sarkis Aleksanian and his family. He had reached out to Bailey-Raines in late April, after learning about the group from a neighborhood WhatsApp chat.

“I was looking into cleaning up the lot and really daunted by the prospect,” he said. “I was worried that the lawn would dry up and be a problem.”

Aleksanian and his wife were on hand to help out. It’s the one thing that Bailey-Raines requires — for the homeowners to be there.

“I've asked them that if they're able-bodied to be here and help,” she said. “You're here. You're encouraging people, and you're helping on your lot. [Sarkis] was doing everything from weed-eater, to chainsaw, to whatever, and that's what it's about.”

This 14,000-square-foot lot in Altadena was cleaned up in less than two hours on a recently Saturday.

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“It was just remarkable, I tell you,” Aleksanian said. He said he recognized some of the volunteers that morning — folks he sees in the community.

And he did encounter someone he knew — a high school acquaintance from years back. “It's neighbors helping neighbors, just like she called it, you know?” Aleksanian said.

His lot was finished in 90 minutes.

More is needed

With a growing waitlist, what is needed are people and equipment — from gloves and trash bags to the hardware.

“I have six brush cutters and two chainsaws and a couple trimmers, but I need, like, triple that at least,” she said.

Same goes for rechargeable batteries that power these tools — which Bailey-Raines juices up with generators they bring on-site.

A number of organizations — including Neighborhood Survants, Altagether, Project Passion, My Tribe Rise, Dena Heals — have granted money and donated equipment and manpower. Bailey-Raines has also put in her own money.

“My dream is one Saturday morning to have 500 people and that we clear a whole street, a whole block — so that this list of 200 can go down, and as others hear about it, they get on it, and we as a community do this as neighbors to help one another,” she said.

After fires and floods, Southern California’s only remaining native freshwater turtle recently got a boost.

Just last month, 15 southwestern pond turtle hatchlings were released into the San Gabriel River — a major milestone in an effort to restore the vulnerable turtle population.

But this wasn’t a typical raise-and-release scenario.

These turtles’ parents went on a harrowing journey before they were born.

A daring rescue

In early September 2020, amid a heat wave and dry weather, a tree branch hit a Southern California Edison power line, igniting the Bobcat Fire.

The fire eventually scorched more than 180 square miles — mostly forest in the San Gabriel Mountains. For comparison, the 2025 Eaton Fire burned about 22 square miles.

Lights from a fire truck illuminate firefighters working the Bobcat Fire in September 2021.

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As the Bobcat Fire spread, biologists grew worried. The fire was burning in the West Fork of the San Gabriel River, a biodiversity hotspot and refuge for bears and mountain lions, the federally protected Santa Ana sucker fish and the mountain yellow-legged frog.

It’s also home to the largest remaining — and possibly only — population of southwestern pond turtles in the entire watershed. Their exact numbers aren’t known, but it’s likely less than 200.

“Because this hadn’t burned in decades and decades and decades, there was big concern about debris flows,” said Robert Fisher, a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

Scientists hoped the turtles would be able to ride out the fire itself by staying in the water, but any rain after would likely lead to a deluge of mud, trees and other burned materials. That would be akin to an avalanche for the turtles in the river, and it had the potential to wipe out the entire population.

Once the flames died down, Fisher and a team of biologists, in partnership with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and U.S. Forest Service, trekked to the home of the pond turtles.

“It was a moonscape,” Fisher said.

They waded through ashy, murky waters, eventually collecting 11 adult turtles.

A temporary home and 15 surprises

The turtles were taken to the San Diego Zoo, where the plan was to hold them until their mountain habitat recovered enough for them to return.

By 2024, the San Gabriel Mountains were looking far better — biologists even found some pond turtles that survived major debris flows.

But right before the turtles were set to go back home, scientists got a surprise.

“Just before we were getting to release, we found a baby turtle, which is amazing,” said Brandon Scott, wildlife care manager of herpetology and ichthyology at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. “You don't know how long it's going to take to restart that process of them actually being able to breed, with the stress and it's a new habitat.”

A juvenile southwestern pond turtle is weighed before being released to the wild.

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The turtles and the new baby were all returned to their home in the San Gabriels. But then came another surprise. And another.

“We just continually, every day, started finding a baby in that habitat,” said Scott.

Female southwestern pond turtles lay and bury their eggs in late spring or early summer. Juveniles emerge months later, only about the size of a quarter.

Fifteen babies later, conservation staff were shocked and pleased.

Their goal for the 11 rescued turtles was to make sure they could thrive before being released back into their habitat. “But in the process,” Scott said, “yes, we made it comfortable enough for them to breed.”

A hopeful release

The new generation of southwestern pond turtles was released in April near the spot their parents were rescued from in the San Gabriel River.

Such rescues of vulnerable wildlife are becoming increasingly common in the face of more catastrophic fires. All but two of the biggest fires in recorded history have been in the last 20 years.

Fisher said a similar rescue of pond turtles had occurred only once before, after the 2009 Station Fire in the San Gabriels. That time, the turtles were quickly returned to their habitat.

A staff member of the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance releases a juvenile southwestern pond turtle into the San Gabriel River.

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That rescue, in part, inspired the U.S. Geological Survey to work with the San Diego Zoo to build a conservation habitat for southwestern pond turtles nearly two decades ago. And the Bobcat Fire became the first time it was used for wild rescues, Fisher said.

Ironically, the Bobcat Fire could eventually help the local population, Fisher said.

“We’ve known about [the population] for decades, but it’s not really thriving,” he said. “So this helped give it a head start. And because the fire was so intense, it opened up a lot of habitat.”

With less tree canopy and more sunlight, the cold-blooded reptiles could thrive in warmer waters and on sunnier rocks.

But the new generation is key.

“Because the site was so forested and hadn’t burned in so long, we don’t think they were having good success at breeding,” Fisher said. “Now we think we’ve really enhanced the population by putting more animals out there, especially young animals.”

Scott and Fisher said the saga has inspired preliminary conversations about formalizing breeding efforts to support the population. The little turtles' myriad threats have yet to let up, so they’ll likely need more help in the future.

But at the moment, there’s a little more hope — at least 16 hatchlings and 11 adults' worth of hope, to be exact — for California’s only native freshwater turtle.