Trans people trying to get a passport that matches their gender identity are now facing challenges, following President Donald Trump’s executive order requiring that federal documents reflect biological sex at birth.
His order reverses the previous practice by the U.S. Department of State that allowed trans Americans to choose their correct gender and nonbinary people to mark their gender as “X” on federal IDs.
The ACLU sued, arguing Trump’s policy is arbitrary and capricious and violates trans and nonbinary Americans’ rights to travel, privacy and equal protection.
In April, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction requiring the State Department to allow six plaintiffs to get passports with the gender marker that matches their identity.
Lawyers then successfully expanded their suit to cover all individuals impacted by the executive order.
In June, U.S. District Court of Massachusetts Judge Julia Kobick ordered the State Department to allow people to self-select the sex on their passports, even if it differs from their sex assigned at birth.
After a lack of federal guidance resulted in people being turned away by their local passport offices, on July 2, the State Department issued guidelines in compliance with the court order.
