Trump passport policy targeting transgender people likely unconstitutional, judge rules

Boston: A federal judge held on Friday that the Trump administration's policy of refusing to issue passports to transgender and nonbinary Americans that reflect their gender identities is likely unconstitutional, but she declined to block it nationwide.

US District Judge Julia Kobick in Boston issued a preliminary injunction that stopped the enforcement of the policy against six of the seven transgender and nonbinary people who sued to challenge the policy adopted by the US Department of State at Republican President Donald Trump's direction.

Kobick said the passport policy and a related executive order signed by Trump that directed the change discriminated on the basis of sex and sprang from an "animus" toward transgender Americans that violated the equal protection principles safeguarded by the US Constitution's Fifth Amendment.

"The Executive Order and Passport Policy are based on irrational prejudice toward transgender Americans and therefore offend our Nation's constitutional commitment to equal protection for all Americans," Kobick wrote.

Although Kobick ordered the State Department to allow six plaintiffs to obtain passports with sex designations consistent with their gender identities, she said they had not shown why they were entitled to an order blocking the policy nationally.

"We will do everything we can to ensure this order is extended to everyone affected by the administration's misguided and unconstitutional policy so that we all have the freedom to be ourselves," Li Nowlin-Sohl, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.

The State Department and White House did not respond to requests for comment.

The case is one of several nationally that were filed related to an executive order Trump signed after returning to office on January 20 directing the government to recognize only two biologically distinct sexes, male and female.

The order also directed the State Department to change its policies to only issue passports that "accurately reflect the holder's sex."

The State Department soon after changed its passport policy to "request the applicant's biological sex at birth," rather than permit applicants to self-identify their sex, and to only allow them to be listed as male or female.

Kobick, an appointee of Trump's Democratic predecessor. Joe Biden, said the policy reflected a reversal of more than 30 years of practice at the State Department of allowing people to update the sex designation on their passports.

In 2022, the Biden administration allowed passport applicants to choose "X" as a neutral sex marker on their passport applications, as well as being able to self-select "M" or "F" for male or female.