Overview
- The court issued a 6-3 unsigned order staying a lower-court injunction and allowing the State Department to require passport sex markers to reflect sex assigned at birth.
- Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, cautioning that transgender people face imminent harm when documents do not match their identity.
- The stay lifts U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick’s nationwide injunction, which the First Circuit had declined to pause while the case proceeds on appeal.
- The policy implements President Trump’s January executive order and reverses the Biden-era rule that let applicants self-select male, female, or an 'X' nonbinary marker without medical documentation.
- The ACLU-led class action challenging the rule under the Fifth Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act continues, with plaintiffs including Ashton Orr citing risks of misidentification, harassment, and added scrutiny.