Trump passport policy discriminates trans people: judge

A US federal judge has held that the Trump administration's policy of refusing to issue passports to transgender and non-binary Americans that reflect their gender identities is likely unconstitutional, but she declined to block it nationwide.

US District Judge Julia Kobick in Boston on Friday issued a preliminary injunction that stopped the enforcement of the policy against six of the seven transgender and non-binary people who sued to challenge the policy adopted by the US Department of State at Republican President Donald Trump's direction.

Kobick said the passport policy and a related executive order signed by Trump that directed the change discriminated on the basis of sex and sprang from an "animus" toward transgender Americans that violated the equal protection principles safeguarded by the US Constitution's Fifth Amendment.

"The Executive Order and Passport Policy are based on irrational prejudice toward transgender Americans and therefore offend our Nation's constitutional commitment to equal protection for all Americans," Kobick wrote.

Although Kobick ordered the State Department to allow six plaintiffs to change their sex designations on their passports or have them listed as "X," she said they had not explained why they were entitled to an order blocking the policy nationally.

The State Department did not respond to requests for comment. The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the plaintiffs, had no immediate comment.

The case is one of several nationally that were filed related to an executive order Trump signed after returning to office on January 20 directing the government to recognise 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 permitting applicants to self-identify their sex, and to only allow them to be listed as male or female.

Kobick, an appointee of Trump's Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, said the policy reflected a reversal of more than 30 years of practice at the State Department of allowing 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.