Name: Supreme Court Allows Trump to Block Passport Sex Markers for Transgender Americans
Uploaded: 2025-11-07T05:49:55.000Z
Description: The decision lifts a lower court's order that had blocked the policy requiring passports to correspond only to a person's sex assigned at birth.

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The nation's highest court has allowed the Trump administration to block passport holders from choosing sex markers that align with gender identity.

In a <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25a319_i4dj.pdf">decision on Thursday</a>, the Supreme Court said the policy doesn't appear to discriminate against transgender people.

“Displaying passport holders’ sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth,” it said. “In both cases, the Government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment.”

The Supreme Court has a 6–3 conservative majority. Its three liberal justices dissented from the decision.

The decision lifts a lower court's order that had blocked the policy requiring passports to correspond only to a person's sex assigned at birth.

It also allows the Trump administration to enforce the policy while the lawsuit plays out in court.

The lawsuit was launched by a nationwide class of passport seekers affected by the policy. The plaintiffs claimed that having sex markers on official documents that differ from their gender identities exposes them to harassment and mistreatment.

In April, Boston-based U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick found that the Trump administration policy likely discriminates based on sex and is rooted in "irrational prejudice" toward transgender Americans. The policy violated their equal protection rights under the Fifth Amendment, the judge said.

In June, the judge blocked Trump’s policy from being enforced.

The policy reverses a decades-long practice under the U.S. State Department. Since 1992, it has allowed passport sex designations to differ from sex assigned at birth with medical documentation.

In 2021 during Joe Biden’s presidency, the agency allowed Americans to select a male or female sex marker without documentation, and further added a third option, "X" for nonbinary, intersex, and gender non-conforming passport applicants.

According to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, transgender and nonbinary people who sued over Trump’s policy have reported being strip-searched, sexually assaulted, and accused of presenting fake documents at airport security checks.

“This Court has once again paved the way for the immediate infliction of injury without adequate (or, really, any) justification,” <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25a319_i4dj.pdf">she wrote in her dissent</a>, saying the policy stemmed directly from Trump’s executive order that described transgender identity as “false” and “corrosive.”

The administration’s efforts to eliminate transgender sex markers align with a series of executive orders Trump signed after he took office in his second term, including the president’s Jan. 20 directive called <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/">Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government. </a>

<em>The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.</em>

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