The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration can reinstate a policy requiring U.S. passports to display a holder’s biological sex as shown on their birth certificate, reversing two lower court rulings in a 6-3 decision.
The ruling halts a Biden-era policy that permitted applicants to choose their gender identity, including an “X” option for unspecified sex.
In its 13-page order, the Court concluded that delaying enforcement of the Trump-era rule would cause “irreparable injury” to the federal government, granting the administration’s emergency request to restore the earlier passport guidelines.
Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the majority’s decision, Townhall reports.
The dispute began after the Biden administration, in 2021, authorized Americans to self-select the sex marker on their passports.
That initiative expanded a year later to allow applicants to opt for “X” if they identified as nonbinary or declined to specify a gender.
Lower courts in Massachusetts and the First Circuit previously blocked enforcement of the Trump policy, calling the move unlawful.
When those courts refused to lift their injunctions, the administration appealed to the nation’s highest court — which ultimately sided with it on Thursday.
The majority wrote that marking a person’s sex at birth does not violate constitutional protections, stating that “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 also noted that the passport rule “carries foreign affairs implications,” and therefore the government’s judgment deserved deference, according to Politico.
Justice Jackson, writing for the dissent, warned that the ruling would cause immediate harm.
“This Court has once again paved the way for the immediate infliction of injury without adequate (or, really, any) justification,” she wrote.
Jackson argued that the administration failed to show any urgency, while trans-identifying Americans had demonstrated the potential for significant real-world harm.
She added, “If gender identity is not a meaningful basis for identification, why are sex markers required on passports at all?”
In her view, “the documented real-world harms to these plaintiffs obviously outweigh the Government’s unexplained (and inexplicable) interest in immediate implementation of the Passport Policy.”
Thursday’s ruling does not resolve the entire legal challenge but suspends an injunction issued earlier this year by U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick, a Biden appointee.
Kobick had blocked enforcement of the policy, calling it “arbitrary and capricious” and suggesting it reflected bias against transgender individuals.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the case in February, contends that requiring birth-sex identifiers on passports violates equal protection guarantees and administrative law.
The lawsuit centers on whether reinstating the biological marker serves any legitimate government function or unfairly targets transgender people.
The debate over gender markers in federal identification has shifted for decades.
In 1992, under President George H.W. Bush, the State Department allowed gender marker changes with proof of gender reassignment surgery.
Under former President Biden, officials removed those medical requirements and permitted self-selection.
While the case continues through lower courts, the Supreme Court’s decision allows the Trump administration to immediately enforce its passport policy.
The ruling underscores a broader legal and cultural divide over how federal agencies define sex in official documents, with the Court signaling support for returning to biological standards.
