Overview
- Justices stayed a nationwide injunction from U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick that had required the State Department to keep offering M, F or X markers based on self-selection.
- The policy removes the 'X' option and requires passport sex markers to reflect sex assigned at birth, reversing a 2021 Biden-era rule that allowed self-selection without medical documentation.
- The majority said listing sex at birth attests to a historical fact, cited foreign-affairs implications for passports and signaled the government is likely to prevail on the merits.
- Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, warning applicants face imminent, concrete injury from gender-incongruent documents.
- Transgender and nonbinary plaintiffs, represented by the ACLU, challenge the rule under equal protection and the Administrative Procedure Act, arguing it risks misidentification, harassment and safety harms as lower-court litigation continues.