A federal court ordered the Trump administration Tuesday to process the passport applications of six transgender and nonbinary Americans with sex markers reflecting their gender identity, temporarily halting enforcement of a State Department policy requiring U.S. passports to match a person’s “biological sex at birth.”
The preliminary injunction ordered by the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland comes less than a week after a separate court rejected an appeal from the Trump administration to allow it to deny updated passports to transgender citizens nationwide. In June, a federal judge in Boston halted the government from denying passports to any transgender, nonbinary or intersex American wanting to change their sex designation to reflect their gender.
George L. Russell III, the district’s chief judge, wrote in Tuesday’s order that six plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the administration’s passport policy would “suffer irreparable harm” if they were given identity documents inconsistent with their gender identity. He dismissed a seventh plaintiff, identified in court papers as Robert Roe, because he had not yet been denied an updated passport.
The State Department suspended processing applications from Americans seeking to update their passports with new sex designations in January, shortly after President Trump signed an executive order proclaiming the U.S. recognizes only two unchangeable sexes, male and female.
The order, which Trump issued hours after his Jan. 20 inauguration, directs the departments of State and Homeland Security and the Office of Personnel Management to mandate that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas and Global Entry cards, reflect an individual’s sex at birth over their gender identity. The State Department previously allowed U.S. passport holders to self-select their sex designations, including an “unspecified” gender marker denoted by the letter X.
“Like every other court that has considered this Executive Order, the Court finds its stated purpose does not serve an important governmental interest that is exceedingly persuasive,” Russell, an appointee of former President Obama, wrote on Tuesday. “Further, the discriminatory means employed are not substantially related to the achievement of those objectives.”
In an initial complaint, the seven plaintiffs, backed by the LGBTQ civil rights group Lambda Legal, argued that the administration’s policy “is causing grave and immediate harm to transgender people,” in violation of their constitutional rights and federal law.
Carl Charles, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said Russell’s preliminary injunction “is an important first step, but our work is far from over.”
“This is a crucial victory for our clients and transgender people nationwide who have been trapped by this administration’s cruel and discriminatory policy,” Charles said in a statement on Tuesday. “The court recognized that forcing inaccurate identity documents on transgender Americans causes immediate and irreparable harm. Our clients can now travel with dignity and safety while we continue fighting to overturn this discriminatory policy entirely.”
Spokespeople for the White House and the State Department did not immediately return messages seeking comment on Tuesday’s order.
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