Judge blocks Trump’s passport policy targeting trans people
A judge has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a policy that denies transgender and nonbinary Americans the right to choose their gender marker on their passport.
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- A judge expanded an injunction against a Trump administration policy requiring passports to reflect sex assigned at birth.
- The injunction now applies to all applicants, allowing passports to align with gender identity, including the “X” marker.
- This temporary reprieve allows transgender, nonbinary, and intersex individuals to obtain accurate passports.
Travelers can once again get a U.S. passport that aligns with their gender identity, for now.
U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick in Boston expanded a preliminary injunction on Tuesday against a Trump administration policy of only issuing passports reflecting a person’s gender assigned at birth.
In the past, Americans had been able to get passports in line with their gender identities, including an “X” marker as of 2022.
Here’s what travelers should know.
How we got here
On President Donald Trump’s first day back in office, he issued an executive order requiring the federal government to only “recognize two sexes, male and female,” declaring “these sexes are not changeable.”
When the State Department followed suit, transgender, nonbinary and intersex passport Americans were left in limbo for much more than travel.
“If our gender markers don’t match who we are, then it’s going to cause us problems, from housing from renting cars to renting hotel rooms to buying cars to buying houses, everything, you name it,” Mikaela, a transgender woman in Texas whose passport was on hold, told USA TODAY in January. “There’s so much more to it in every element that people just don’t think about.”
In April, Judge Kobick issued a preliminary injunction, allowing six people named in a lawsuit co-filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Orr v. Trump, to be able to get passports reflecting their gender identities while their case made its way through the courts.
On Tuesday, Kobick expanded that preliminary injunction, following motions for class certification and expanding the previous ruling to anyone who is or will be impacted by the administration’s passport policy, according to the ACLU.
What happens now
Following the ruling, the ACLU wrote:
“Today’s ruling from the court means that a passport with a sex designation that aligns with one’s gender identity or with an ‘X’ sex designation should be made available to anyone applying to: obtain a new passport, change the sex designation or update their name on their current passport, replace a lost, stolen, or damaged passport, or renew their passport within one year of its expiration.
This includes those who, under the Trump administration’s policy, were previously sent a passport with a sex designation listing their sex assigned at birth after applying for a new, renewed, or replaced passport, and/or a changed name or gender marker.”
The ACLU encourages Americans to take advantage of this temporary reprieve from the policy.
The State Department said, in general, it does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation.
It’s important to note the block is not permanent, though that is being pursued.
Contributing: Ben Adler, Kathleen Wong; USA TODAY
(This story has been updated with new information.)
