US judge blocks Trump passport policy targeting transgender people

Boston: A federal judge on Tuesday blocked President Donald Trump's administration from refusing to issue passports to transgender and nonbinary Americans nationwide that reflect their gender identities.

US District Judge Julia Kobick in Boston expanded a preliminary injunction she issued in April that allowed just six transgender and nonbinary individuals who challenged the policy to obtain passports consistent with their gender identities or with an "X" sex designation while the lawsuit moves forward.

Kobick did so after concluding the policy the US Department of State adopted pursuant to an executive order Trump signed likely discriminated on the basis of sex and was rooted in an irrational prejudice toward transgender Americans that violated the US Constitution's Fifth Amendment.

While Kobick's April ruling was limited in its scope, the judge, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden, on Tuesday agreed to grant the case class action status and pause enforcement of the policy as applied to all transgender, nonbinary and intersex US passport holders.

Kobick said granting class action status to two different categories of passport holders was appropriate given that the administration's actions affected all of them uniformly "by preventing them from obtaining passports with a sex marker consistent with their gender identity."

Li Nowlin-Sohl, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the American Civil Liberties Union, in a statement called the ruling "a critical victory against discrimination and for equal justice under the law."

The State Department did not respond to requests for comment.

The case is one of several 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.

Prior to Trump, the State Department for more than three decades had allowed 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.