Trans Plaintiffs Call On Supreme Court to Reject Trump's 'Discriminatory' Passport Restrictions

A group of transgender plaintiffs is calling on the US Supreme Court to reject the Trump administration's request to lift a judge's order blocking what they describe as a "discriminatory" passport policy.

The US State Department earlier this year announced that it would bar transgender Americans from changing the gender listed on their passports from the gender assigned to them at birth. Several transgender plaintiffs, represented by attorneys from the ACLU, quickly filed for an injunction against the policy, which was granted by a lower court and upheld by the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals.

In asking the Supreme Court to reject the Trump administration's request for a stay, the ACLU attorneys argue that the passport policy "irrationally undermines the very purpose of passports—identifying a US citizen when they travel" and also is "motivated by antitransgender animus."

The ACLU attorneys are asking for the injunction to be upheld so that transgender and nonbinary Americans can continue to either change the designated gender on their passports or receive a passport with a gender marked as "X."

Jessie Rossman, legal director at the ACLU of Massachusetts, said that the injunction should be upheld because the administration's policy would "cause immediate, irreparable harm" if it came into effect.

"Transgender, nonbinary, and intersex Americans rely on accurate identity documents to travel with safety, privacy, and dignity," Rossman said. "We are asking the Supreme Court to reject this request for a stay and preserve the injunction issued below so our clients will be spared profound disruption and distress while their case proceeds."

Li Nowlin-Sohl, staff attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ and HIV Project, urged the Supreme Court to follow the lead of the lower courts, which "made abundantly clear how discriminatory and baseless the State Department's new policy is and the harm it poses for hundreds of thousands of people like our clients."

"People across the country depend on identity documents that accurately reflect their identity—who they are in their workplaces, their schools, and their communities," Nowlin-Sohl emphasized. "The administration’s attempts to deny that right to transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people has no basis in law or policy, and we’ll continue to fight this policy until it is permanently defeated."