The Supreme Court revived a ban on Americans self-identifying as their chosen gender on passports on Thursday. This order was previously blocked by a lower court.
In an unsigned order, the Supreme Court stayed the lower court’s demand, arguing that the Trump administration was likely to succeed on the merits and that the lower court’s stay would cause irreparable harm to the government.
“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 unnamed majority wrote.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson raised concerns about the potential harm caused by not allowing the policy to take effect. She contrasted this with the obvious harm it would cause to transgender and nonbinary Americans.
“The Government seeks to enforce a questionably legal new policy immediately, but it offers no evidence that it will suffer any harm if it is temporarily enjoined from doing so. Meanwhile, the plaintiffs will be subject to imminent, concrete injury if the policy goes into effect,” Jackson wrote. “This court has once again paved the way for the immediate infliction of injury without adequate (or, really, any) justification.”
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https://www.salon.com/2025/11/06/supreme-court-revives-trump-admin-ban-on-transgender-nonbinary-passport-identification/