The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to block a judge’s order and mandate that passports list only “biological sex at birth” as the sex marker. At the beginning of his term, President Donald Trump signed an executive order for the federal government to recognize “male and female” as the only two sexes, ending a policy adopted by the Biden administration that allowed citizens to self-select their gender and choose X as a marker on identity documents. The policy affected transgender and nonbinary Americans, including actress Hunter Schafer, who applied for a passport as “female” but received one listing her as “male.” In February, a group of transgender and nonbinary people sued the administration, and in April U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick partially blocked the ban for the six plaintiffs, allowing them to obtain passports with their self-selected gender identity. The Massachusetts federal judge expanded the preliminary injunction in June, pausing the enforcement of the policy for all transgender, nonbinary, and intersex citizens. The Trump administration appealed the decision and asked for emergency relief so that the policy could be enforced, but the appeal was denied by U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit. The Justice Department’s Friday emergency appeal to the Supreme Court is the latest in a series of appeals made by the Trump administration. In May, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to enforce a ban on transgender individuals serving in the military.
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