The U.S. Supreme Court handed the Trump administration a win on Thursday, allowing the Department of State to require that passports identify people based solely on their biological sex, not their “gender identity.”
The Court’s ruling stays a lower court order that had prevented the government from enforcing its policy requiring all new passports display an individual’s biological sex.
“Displaying passport holders’ sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth — in both cases, the Government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment,” the Court wrote in an unsigned opinion.
Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan.
“Today, the Court refuses to answer equity’s call,” Justice Jackson charged.
“In my view, the Court’s failure to acknowledge the basic norms of equity jurisdiction is more than merely regrettable. It is an abdication of the Court’s duty to ensure that equitable standards apply equally to all litigants — to transgender people and the Government alike.”
In 2021, the State Department first announced it would allow passport applicants to select their own “gender marker,” either “M” or “F,” regardless of their real sex. Additionally, the agency said it would add a “gender marker for non-binary, intersex, and gender non-conforming persons.”
Later that year, the State Department issued its first “gender-neutral” passport, with an individual’s sex marked with an “X” designation.
But the Biden administration’s erasure of the reality of sex wouldn’t fly under the new Trump administration.
In his second inaugural address on January 20, 2025, President Donald J. Trump declared, “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.”
Later that day, the president signed an important executive order, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”
That order stated,
The Secretaries of State and Homeland Security, and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management, shall implement changes to require that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards, accurately reflect the holder’s sex.
The State Department promptly followed the president’s direction and implemented the executive order, requiring new passports reflect an applicant’s biological sex through an “M” or “F” designation.
But a group of transgender-identified, nonbinary-identified and intersex people filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s action, arguing it discriminated on the basis of sex and was motivated by animus towards transgender-identified Americans.
U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick, a nominee of former President Joe Biden based in Boston, quickly blocked the new policy, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit declined to put the lower-court order on hold.
The Trump administration then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.
“It was entirely rational for the President to reject ‘gender identity’ as a ‘basis for identification’ in favor of a ‘biological’ definition of sex — one grounded in facts that are ‘immutable,’” U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer told the Court.
“[It is] hard to imagine a system less conducive to accurate identification than one in which anyone can refuse to identify his or her sex and withhold relevant identifying information for any reason, or can rely on a mutable sense of self-identification,” he added.
Thankfully, the Court has now agreed to uphold the administration’s policy while the case continues to play out in the lower courts.
“On this record, respondents have failed to establish that the Government’s choice to display biological sex ‘lack[s] any purpose other than a bare . . . desire to harm a politically unpopular group,’” the Court said.
“Nor are respondents likely to prevail in arguing that the State Department acted arbitrarily and capriciously by declining to depart from Presidential rules that Congress expressly required it to follow.”
While we should have compassion on all those confused over their sexual identity, we can also be grateful the Trump administration is restoring biological reality and sanity to our federal government.
The case is Donald J. Trump v. Ashton Orr.
Related articles and resources:
President Trump: ‘There are Only Two Genders: Male and Female’
Government Gone Woke: State Department Issues First Nonbinary Passport
U.S. State Department to Add ‘Non-Binary’ and ‘Intersex’ Options on Passports
Photo from Getty Images.
