A Biden-appointed Massachusetts judge has ordered the State Department to provide passports to transgender people using the incorrect sex marker, in violation of President Donald Trump’s executive order.
On the first day of his second term, President Trump signed an order saying the federal government would only recognize two sexes.
The order states, “sexes that are not changeable, and they are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”
In compliance with the order, the State Department changed its policy to only issue passports that “accurately reflect the holder’s sex,” as it was assigned at birth. Previously, the department was allowing people to choose their own sex, and the Biden administration even added an option for people to choose just an “X.”
The change prompted a lawsuit from six people who claim to be transgender and/or “non-binary.”
In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs claimed, “Having a sex designation on a passport that involuntarily discloses someone is transgender, nonbinary, or intersex can also cause harassment and discrimination while traveling within the United States.”
U.S. District Judge Julia Sobick ruled on Friday that since the plaintiffs are likely to win their case, the State Department must just issue them passports.
Sobick called the new policy of accurately listing a person’s biological sex “arbitrary and capricious.”
“The plaintiffs have also demonstrated a likelihood of success on their separate argument that, under any standard of review, 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,” Sobick wrote in the order, according to a report from USA Today.
“In addition, the plaintiffs have shown that they are likely to succeed on their claim that the Passport Policy is arbitrary and capricious, and that it was not adopted in compliance with the procedures required by the Paperwork Reduction Act and Administrative Procedure Act,” the judge continued.
Sobick’s ruling does not apply nationwide at this time.
The USA Today report stated, “The litigants who can receive passports by marking X for their sex on their applications, under the judge’s ruling, are Ashton Orr of Morgantown, West Virginia; Zaya Perysian of Santa Clarita, California; Sawyer Soe of Salem, Massachusetts; Chastain Anderson, who lives near Richmond, Virginia; Drew Hall of Wisconsin and Bella Boe of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Soe and Boe are pseudonyms.”
