Supreme Court allows Trump to limit passport sex markers for trans and nonbinary Americans

The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to require the sex designation on US passports to align with a traveler’s biological sex, a blow to transgender and nonbinary Americans who have argued the policy is unconstitutional.

The order represented another win for President Donald Trump on the court’s emergency docket and another setback for LGBTQ rights at a time when the justices are considering multiple cases involving state laws aimed at trans Americans.

“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 said in an unsigned order.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, named to the court by former President Joe Biden, penned another scathing dissent, joined by the court’s other two liberals.

“Such senseless sidestepping of the obvious equitable out­come has become an unfortunate pattern,” Jackson wrote.