The Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration can enforce a policy requiring U.S. passports to reflect a holder’s biological sex, allowing the measure to take effect while ongoing litigation continues.

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The order issued by the Court stated, “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 decision temporarily reinstates the administration’s directive, which had been blocked by lower courts following challenges from advocacy groups and individual plaintiffs.

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The ruling came after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit declined in September to pause a lower court’s injunction that had prevented enforcement of the rule.

The policy stems from an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on his first day in office, January 20, 2025.

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The order directed federal agencies to “implement changes to require that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards, accurately reflect the holder’s sex,” defining sex as “an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female.”

Under the Biden-Harris administration, the U.S. State Department had permitted passport applicants to choose among “M,” “F,” or “X” as their sex marker, without requiring that the selection correspond to their biological sex.

That rule change, introduced in 2021, was reversed immediately upon President Trump’s return to office as part of his broader directive to align federal identification documents with biological definitions of sex.

In her dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, criticized the Court’s decision to allow the policy to take effect during ongoing litigation.

“On January 22, 2025, the agency overhauled the rules for sex markers on passports, reverting to its pre-1992 practices. Its Passport Policy now requires that all new passports reflect the holders’ sex assigned at birth,” Jackson wrote.

She continued, “Why? Because two days earlier, on January 20, President Trump issued Executive Order No. 14168, characterizing transgender identity as ‘false’ and ‘corrosive’ to American society.”

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The plaintiffs in the case, who are transgender individuals, argued that the State Department’s policy violates the Equal Protection Clause by discriminating on the basis of sex and by lacking any rational basis.

Jackson summarized their argument, writing that it “unlawfully discriminated on the basis of sex, and it lacked any rational basis because it was motivated by bare animus against transgender Americans.”

The plaintiffs also claimed that the rule violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), asserting that it was “arbitrary and capricious” and enacted without adherence to procedural requirements under the Paperwork Reduction Act.

Close

The Court’s order does not represent a final ruling on the underlying case but allows the Trump administration’s policy to remain in effect while the legal challenge proceeds through the appeals process.

The decision marks a significant development in the administration’s efforts to restore what it describes as biological accuracy across federal documentation standards.

The ongoing case will continue in lower courts as both sides prepare for full arguments on the constitutionality of the policy later this year.

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