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On Tuesday, I received my very own Certificate of Identity. This came almost three months after IRCC received my application, so way past their last known published service standard. And some people did tell me that I wouldn’t be able to get this document. Some of them, because they don’t see the harm in travelling on a false passport. Or they refuse to accept the fact that yes, a passport that misrepresents a trans woman’s sex as “male” is false. After all, the reason why I need it is uncomplicated: the Trump administration has made it clear that they won’t issue accurate passports to trans people. I need an accurate passport to both travel internationally and return to Canada via air. Hell, the specific tenor of the correspondence from IRCC was preparing me to expect a refusal and to start rattling the sabre. Years of dealing with IRCC have created a sort of… adversarial tension between the agency and me.

Thankfully, it turned out for the best. No, I do not know why. And honestly, I was kinda hoping for a battle. Mostly because the agency’s public-facing advice on this topic is lacking and I want judicial recognition of the abysmal state of human rights for trans people south of the border. After all the bullshit I had to deal with fighting my own refugee case and making predictions that are continuing to be proven right? It’d be nice to be fighting a battle against IRCC where they have to face me under regular Judicial Review instead of the much more prejudicial ALJR process.

Can I travel to the United States on it?

LOL, no.

Oh, you want a fuller explanation than that? Well, as a US citizen, I’m not allowed to enter the United States without a US passport. And Canadian policy mandates that travel documents issued to non-Canadians include a restriction from travelling to your country of origin. This is true for both Refugee Travel Documents and Certificates of Identity. So, even if I wanted to return to the United States, the answer is no. It is unlikely that I would be able to return until 2029 at the earliest. For multiple reasons. And most assuredly not on this travel document.

How long is it valid for?

For me, they issued it for five years. It’s valid until 2031. Most assuredly much more validity than I need, as I intend to apply for citizenship the second I qualify. However, there is no public-facing indication how long they guarantee the validity for. It’s up to the discretion of the officer. It’s unlikely they would issue it for longer than five years, though.

So, what’s next?

The first thing I plan to do is write a post telling all of you how I did it. Let me be clear, the specific fact pattern I argued from is for transgender US citizens who are permanent residents of Canada and cannot obtain a passport from any other country. Some of the facts might be relevant to you. Others might not. Also, I’m not an attorney, so please don’t take this as legal advice. It’s not. I’m not a lawyer, I’m just someone who probably earned a couple grey hairs because I fought IRCC for years. 0/10, would not recommend.

After that? Probably voice feminization surgery in South Korea. After all, I was originally planning on going in 2019 but my escape to Canada largely disrupted that. Now, it’s time to pull the trigger and make this happen. Maybe some travelling for the first time in so long. Hell, I’m thinking les Utopiales or les Imaginales in France. Or Carnevale in Venice. According to the correspondence I’ve been having with the Mexican consulate in Vancouver, it’s likely I won’t need a visa to travel to Mexico. Or Chernobyl if Russia ever stops fucking with Ukraine.

Ever since 2019, Canada’s been my home and I’ve also been effectively unable to leave Canada. At first, this was because I was actively litigating a refugee claim but after Trump regained the Presidency in 2024, one of his first acts was to deny transgender people many of the rights of citizenship. One of these rights is the ability to access accurate passports. I applied for a certificate of identity in mid-July because, unfortunately, I am unable to obtain a legally usable, accurate passport from the US. Legally unusable pursuant to Canadian and American law.

While the harm was ordered by the Trump administration, the fact of the matter is that without a valid travel document, I am effectively unable to travel to my country of nationality. The Canadian courts have, to varying extents, recognized a denial of a national passport as a form of functional statelessness. In my previous post, I discuss the legal precedent of Canada v. Ward, [1993] 2 S.C.R. 689, where the Supreme Court of Canada affirms this logic.

The Cage

In a report on ghost immigrants and Sunny Wang’s Newcan immigration consultancy fraud, CBC’s The Fifth Estate touched on a fairly unique concept. Ian Young from the South China Morning Post referred to it as “Yiminjian” or “immigration jail”. This concept interprets the residency requirement as a form of “jail”. For me, I can see the applicability of this concept as the border has become not just much harder for me to cross but to the point of virtually impossible and legally perilous.

The concept is also echoed in interviews with stateless person Mike Gogulski. Unlike Gogulski, I’m in a much more precarious position as I do not have a legally usable travel document. He, on the other hand, has been issued a stateless person’s travel document by the Slovakian government. And even he characterizes his position as being “in a cage” due to his severely restricted ability to travel.

IRCC’s complicity

I have been actively reaching out to the powers that be to try to resolve this issue. And their initial correspondence once they received my application is not promising. Here is the bit of the letter they sent me that makes me think that IRCC is unlikely to grant me a Certificate of Identity.

Certificates of Identity are issued to permanent residents of Canada who are not yet Canadian citizens, and who, although not considered to have refugee status in Canada, are otherwise stateless or unable, for a valid reason, to obtain a national passport or travel document from any source. These documents are not issued simply to facilitate travel or the attainment of visas.

Since you are a citizen of the United States of America you would not, under normal circumstances, qualify for a Certificate of Identity unless a request for passport facilities was refused by the authorities of the United States of America and you could provide this office with the letter of refusal.

The information contained in your application does not provide us with sufficient grounds to warrant the issuance of a Certificate of Identity. It is, therefore, suggested that you communicate in writing with the embassy to determine your eligibility to obtain passport facilities, retaining copies of your letters as well as the registration receipt from the postal authorities. If your request is refused, forward the letter of refusal to this office. If the letter is not written in French or English it will be necessary for you to provide a certified translation.

I want to share what I sent them. This included the application with a 16-page letter that outlined why I can’t obtain a legally usable, accurate US passport, the risk of travelling under a false passport under US and Canadian law. I also included the following:

• a copy of the Executive Order that effectively orders the State Department to deny trans people accurate passports.
• copies of the court decisions in the Orr case
• a litigation summary from the ACLU
• a copy of the State Department’s own page on sex markers in US passports
• the IRB’s own guidance on how they judge misrepresentation cases

Corresponding with the Powers that Be

When IRCC determined, for reasons unstated, that the documentation I provided “does not provide us sufficient grounds to warrant the issuance of a Certificate of Identity”, I started reaching out. This determination was made in spite of the fact that there’s a clear causal chain between the Executive Order that directed the denial, the impact of the denial resulting in initial granting of injunctive relief, and the reversal of said relief by SCOTUS. I reached out to my US Congressman and Senators. These are Congressman Joe Neguse, Senator Michael Bennet, and Senator John Hickenlooper. Congressman Neguse’s office took point on this inquiry. Eventually, I received forwarded correspondence from the American Citizen Services chief of the Vancouver Consulate. While it didn’t deny me a passport specifically by name, it did reinforce my thesis.

Current US passport makes it extremely unlikely that a transgender person would be able to successfully apply for and receive an accurate, legally usable passport.

I forwarded this fact to IRCC early last month. The last correspondence I received from IRCC is from the Minister’s office. Strap in people, this gets ridiculous.

The correspondence from the Ministerial Enquiries Division

This is the e-mail I received from the Ministerial Enquiries Division, which is apparently who responds when you e-mail [email protected].

Dear Daria Bloodworth:

Thank you for your correspondence dated August 17, 2026, addressed to the Honourable Lena Metlege Diab, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, regarding your immigration situation. I have been asked to respond to you.

I appreciate you sharing the circumstances that prompted you to write, and I understand that you are going through a difficult time. Canada has a proud history of providing protection to the world’s most vulnerable groups, including persons in the LGBTQ2 community. Canada relies primarily on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to identify individuals for resettlement to Canada who are the most vulnerable and at risk. These individuals include persons persecuted on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. Private sponsorship groups in Canada can also identify refugees who need to be resettled, including individuals from the LGBTQ2 community.

I note that you have contacted to the Case Processing Centre in Sydney, which is the appropriate office to respond to your request.

Although I understand that this may not be the response you had anticipated, I hope that you will find this information to be helpful.

Sincerely,

Ministerial Enquiries Division

I’m honestly not sure what any of this has to do with my Certificate of Identity application. In fact, it reads more like meritless back patting. They can claim that “Canada has a proud history of providing protection to the world’s most vulnerable groups” but I know better. I have first hand experience of how hard IRCC fights against transgender people who win a refugee claim. As of this date, the Case Processing Centre in Sydney has not responded to my request for a Certificate of Identity and we are well past double the service standard set by IRCC. The first, last, and only time I heard from the Case Processing Centre in Sydney was back in early August. This was almost two months ago.

Echoes from the past

There is a woman who was in a similar situation to my own. Guldana Salimjan only got her Certificate of Identity expedited after CBC reported on her story. She made more than twenty inquiries to IRCC and waited nearly six months before the media paid attention and got IRCC to act. Six months past mid-July, my US passport will already be expired.

In fact, the CBC article contains one line that sends chills down my spine and raises another very important question. And I’ll quote that line now:

According to the IRCC letter, Chinese citizens wouldn’t normally qualify for a Canadian certificate of identity, unless accompanied by paperwork from Chinese authorities proving their ineligibility for a Chinese passport.

Call me crazy, but that has a lot of parallels to the letter I received from IRCC in early August. Makes me wonder if this is a form letter that IRCC likes to send out when people apply for a Certificate of Identity. That suspicion is only strengthened by the volume of supporting evidence I submitted to IRCC when I applied for my Certificate of Identity. So, the case of Guldana Salimjan raises four very important questions.

Why do we need a journalist to get IRCC to act?

Why can’t the process just work?

What are my options if I can’t get a journalist to care about my application?

Is IRCC sending form letters with canned responses to applicants for Certificates of Identity in lieu of actually evaluating the applications on the merits?

So, what next?

As I said in my previous post on this topic, there is a clock ticking on this problem. January 10th, 2027 is the expiry date on both my US passport book and card. This means on January 11th, 2027, I will be without a valid travel document. And they are in the custody of IRCC, awaiting a decision on my Certificate of Identity. The question is no longer whether this policy denies me a passport, it’s whether anyone notices before the last accurate one I own expires.

I want to clarify one thing specifically. I don’t have a denial letter for myself, specifically. As of this date, I have not made an application for a US passport since receiving my last US passport book and card on January 11th, 2017. However, I know full well that the policy of the United States government, along with the results of similarly situated persons, demonstrates that the United States government will either issue me a false passport inconsistent with my actual sex or deny me a passport at all. This is due to Trump’s own personal “gender ideology” that trans women are somehow “male”. This is the problem with electing a man who constantly needs cognitive tests to the highest office in the land.

So, why haven’t I applied?

The answer is quite simple and is threefold. Though, I do need to explain a bit more about each time period.

When the Canada Border Services Agency had my passport

Before Trump took office and signed the executive order that directed the State Department to start issuing false passports to trans people, my US passport was not in my possession. I was actively litigating a refugee claim requesting Canada’s protection. As a part of the process, I had to surrender any and all American identification I had. This included my Colorado ID card, my Global Entry card, and my US Passport book and card.

I would have tried to renew it before Trump actually took office if I had access to my US passports. I say this with certainty because I did this before Trump’s first term started. When I renewed my US passport in 2016, I received my US passport just days before the first Trump administration took power. From November 2019 to the day I complied with my departure order in May 2025, my US passport was not in my possession.

After CBSA returned my passport to me and injunctive relief was granted

In late April, the Federal Court informed me that my Application for Leave and for Judicial Review was denied. This was the effective end of my refugee claim. I exhausted the last of my appeals and had to leave Canada. I immediately started reaching out to CBSA to arrange for my departure from Canada. Eventually, after obtaining contradictory answers, I was able to reach out with a local contact with IRCC here in Whitehorse. He connected me with CBSA in Edmonton and we coordinated my voluntary departure from Canada. Well, as “voluntary” as it can be when you’ve spent the majority of the previous decade fighting to remain in Canada.

However, on May 23rd, 2025, I received my Confirmation of Departure from Canada as I boarded my one-way flight to Denver. On May 27th, 2025, I immediately applied for Permanent Resident status. On June 21st, 2025, I returned to Canada on a one way flight back to Edmonton on a visitor visa. No injunctive relief was available in the four days between my return to the United States and my application for a permanent resident visa.

When the Court ordered injunctive relief

When injunctive relief was possible, I was not able to avail myself of that relief for two reasons. The first is that I was not yet a part of the defined class. My passport had more than a year of validity from the date the District Court granted relief until that relief was overturned by SCOTUS. I was never included in the Orr class while the relief was available. The second reason was, even if I wanted to attempt while the injunction was in force, I needed a passport. I was in the process of applying for permanent resident status. From May 27th to December 16th, 2025, I could not part with my passport. Not until I received my Electronic Confirmation of Permanent Resident status.

Why can’t I apply now?

And now? Now, I have no injunctive relief to rely on. I am watching the Orr case move its way through the American court system. I am watching the State Department argue in open court that it should have the right to issue false passports to transgender people. Passports that are effectively useless, given how negatively immigration officials around the world view the usage of false passports. The latest Order from the District of Massachusetts is an order for discovery from the Orr plaintiffs. So, needless to say, this case is likely to drag on long past the day I finally become eligible to apply for Canadian citizenship.

Why can’t I use an inaccurate passport?

Because I know that immigration officials take a fairly dim view of people who present false documents to them. I freely admit that the legality of false passports actually issued by the national authority is untested. However, the chain of facts remain the same. I know full well I’m not male. I don’t believe that every employee of the State Department is unwell enough to believe any woman, whether trans or cis, is “male”. Therefore, there is at least one, if not more, point of intentional falsification of a US passport.

So, even having it is a crime under 18 USC § 1543. But using it is a separate crime. And even though I’d likely be acquitted due to the fact that my receipt and usage of it is wholly due to State action, this only resolves the liability under 18 USC § 1543. Entrapment by the US government is not a defence to criminal inadmissibility to Canada under s. 36 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Conviction is not a requirement for me to be found inadmissible under s. 36 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The act is enough to destroy the life I’ve built for myself in Canada.

I also tend to believe that when it comes to lying to the government, the dildo of consequences rarely arrives lubed.

So, what’s next?

The clock continues to tick down. Barring a miracle out of the District of Massachusetts, January 10th, 2027 is the last day that I have access to a legally usable, accurate US passport. Well, in theory. After all, IRCC has actual custody of my US passport while they’re processing my Certificate of Identity application. But after January 10th, 2027, I will, for all intents and purposes, be “effectively stateless” due to the hardships placed upon me by the US government. This is not just my opinion but the opinion of the UNHCR and the Supreme Court of Canada in Canada v. Ward. To quote the Court:

The inquiry as to whether a claimant meets the “Convention refugee” definition must focus on whether there is a “well‑founded fear”, which the claimant must first establish, and all that follows must be “by reason of” that fear. Two categories, both requiring the claimant to be outside his or her state of nationality by reason of that fear, exist. The first requires that the claimant be unable to avail him‑ or herself of that state’s protection. It originally related only to stateless persons, but can now include those refused passports or other protections by their state of nationality.

While I accept that this doesn’t cite either the Royal Prerogative or the Citizenship Act, it doesn’t need to. The fact that they recognize that the denial of a passport by a person’s state as a hardship is enough. If the Canadian government has chosen to mitigate those hardships by granting me a Certificate of Identity, I’ll consider this resolved. However, if they choose either to deny the Certificate of Identity application or fail to render a decision by that date, that’s a different story. I’ll look at other legal remedies available to me.