Supreme Court upholds Trump rule preventing gender marker changes on passports

The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed US President Donald Trumps administration to enforce a policy blocking transgender and nonbinary people from choosing passport sex markers that align with their gender identity The decision is Trumps latest win on the courts emergency docket and allows the administration to enforce the policy while a lawsuit over it plays out It halts a lowercourt order requiring the government to keep letting people choose male female or X on their passport to correspond with their gender identity on new or renewed passportsThe courts three liberal justices dissented The court has sided with the government in nearly two dozen shortterm orders on a range of policies since the start of Trumps second term including another case barring transgender people from serving in the military In a brief unsigned order the conservativemajority court said the policy isnt discriminatory Displaying passport holders sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth it saidIn both cases the government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment The courts three liberal justices disagreed saying in a dissent that those passports make transgender people vulnerable to increased violence harassment and discrimination This court has once again paved the way for the immediate infliction of injury without adequate or really any justification Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote saying the policy stemmed directly from Trumps executive order that described transgender identity as false and corrosiveTransgender and nonbinary people who sued over the policy have reported being sexually assaulted stripsearched and accused of presenting fake documents at airport security checks she wrote The Supreme Court majority said being unable to enforce the policy harms the government because passports are part of foreign affairs an area of executive branch controlThe dissenters though said its not clear exactly how individual identification documents affect the nations foreign policy The State Department changed its passport rules after Trump a Republican handed down an executive order in January declaring the United States would recognise two sexes male and female based on birth certificates and biological classification Transgender actor Hunter Schafer for example said in February that her new passport had been issued with a male gender marker even though shes marked female on her drivers licence and passport for yearsThe plaintiffs argue those passports arent accurate and can be unsafe for those whose gender expression doesnt match whats on the documents Forcing transgender people to carry passports that out them against their will increases the risk that they will face harassment and violence Jon Davidson senior counsel for the ACLUs LGBTQ and HIV Project said This is a heartbreaking setback for the freedom of all people to be themselves and fuel on the fire the Trump administration is stoking against transgender people and their constitutional rightsSex markers began appearing on passports in the mid1970s and the federal government started allowing them to be changed with medical documentation in the early 1990s the plaintiffs said in court documents A 2021 change under thenPresident Joe Biden a Democrat removed documentation requirements and allowed nonbinary people to choose an X gender marker after years of litigation A judge blocked the Trump administration policy in June after a lawsuit from nonbinary and transgender people some of whom said they were afraid to submit applicationsAn appeals court left the judges order in place Solicitor General D John Sauer then turned to the Supreme Court pointing to its recent ruling upholding a ban on transitionrelated healthcare for transgender minors and calling the Bidenera policy inaccurate White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly applauded Thursdays order This decision is a victory for common sense and President Trump who was resoundingly elected to eliminate woke gender ideology from our federal government she said Attorney General Pam Bondi also celebrated the order saying there are two sexes and Justice Department attorneys would continue to fight for that simple truthThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever