Supreme Court sides with Trump administration on sex designations on passports

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- The Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon handed the Trump administration another victory on the justices’ interim docket. In a brief, unsigned opinion, the court granted the government’s request to temporarily put on hold rulings by a federal judge in Massachusetts that would have required the State Department to issue passports to transgender and nonbinary Americans that reflect the sex designation of their choosing. “Displaying passport holders’ sex at birth,” the majority said, “no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth—in both cases, the Government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment.” 

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, in an opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. She contended that the majority had “once again paved the way for the immediate infliction of injury without adequate (or, really, any) justification. Because I cannot acquiesce to this pointless but painful perversion of our equitable discretion,” she wrote, “I respectfully dissent.” 

U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick issued the orders at the center of the case earlier this year in a lawsuit brought by seven individual transgender and nonbinary plaintiffs. They challenged an executive order, issued by President Donald Trump on Jan. 20, indicating that the federal government would only “recognize two sexes, male and female.” The order also instructed the State Department to “require that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards, accurately reflect the holder’s sex.” 

The policy was a reversal from one adopted during the Biden administration, which had permitted transgender people to receive passports that reflected their gender identity without providing any medical documentation and added a third gender marker – “X” – for nonbinary applicants.

The challengers went to federal court, where they alleged that the new policy violated their rights to equal treatment under the Constitution, their rights to international travel and informational privacy, and the federal law governing administrative agencies. 

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