Following an executive order from President Donald Trump barring people from updating the sex designation on their passports, seven people have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the State Department’s refusal to issue passports with accurate sex designations.
On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order attempting to mandate discrimination against transgender people across the federal government and government programs. This included a directive to the Departments of State and Homeland Security “to require that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards” reflect their sex “at conception.” Under the ensuing Passport Policy, within 24 hours the State Department began holding some passports and other documents (such as birth certificates and court orders) submitted by transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people who had applied to update the sex designation on their U.S. passports and returning others with their applications rejected and their newly-issued passport marked with their sex assigned at birth.
“I’ve lived virtually my entire adult life as a man. Everyone in my personal and professional life knows me as a man, and any stranger on the street who encountered me would view me as a man,” said Reid Solomon-Lane of North Adams, Massachusetts. “I thought that 18 years after transitioning, I would be able to live my life in safety and ease. Now, as a married father of three, Trump’s executive order and the ensuing passport policy have threatened that life of safety and ease. If my passport were to reflect a sex designation that is inconsistent with who I am, I would be forcibly outed every time I used my passport for travel or identification, causing potential risk to my safety and my family’s safety.”
The ACLU has been contacted through its legal intake form by over 1,500 transgender people or family members, many with passport applications suspended or pending, who are concerned about being able to get passports that accurately reflect their identity.
For years, including throughout the first Trump Administration, the State Department has allowed people to change the sex designation on their passport to be in alignment with their gender identity. In 2022, the State Department issued a revised policy making it easier to update the sex designation, and allowing individuals to select M, F, or X for their sex. Similar policies are used in 21 states plus the District of Columbia with regards to birth certificates and driver’s licenses as well as countries around the world.
Since the Executive Order was signed, the State Department has said publicly that applications to obtain a sex designation consistent with their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth have been “suspended.” An official with the White House has stated that the pending policy requiring passports to bear the holder’s sex assigned at birth will not be applied retroactively.
The new lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Massachusetts, and law firm Covington & Burling LLP, on behalf of seven people who have not been able to obtain passports that match who they are because of the State Department’s new Passport Policy or are likely to be impacted by the new policy upon their next renewal. The complaint was filed in the federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
“The plaintiffs in this case have had their lives disrupted by a chaotic policy clearly motivated by animus that serves zero public interest,” said Sruti Swaminathan, Staff Attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project. “Our clients need to travel for work, school, and family, and forcing them to carry documents that directly contradict what they know about themselves to be true–or withhold those documents altogether–is a blatant effort to violate their privacy and deny them their freedom to be themselves. We’re thankful for their participation in this lawsuit and are hopeful the court will see through this flagrant attempt to violate our plaintiffs' rights under the Constitution.”
“This is yet another example of the Trump administration attempting to deny the dignity of transgender people and trying to push them out of public life,” said Jessie Rossman, legal director at the ACLU of Massachusetts. “These efforts are cruel, unfair, and unlawful. We’re challenging this unconstitutional Passport Policy because all people deserve the freedom to live their lives safely and with dignity.”
“Transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people deserve dignity, privacy, and the right to travel, just as all people do,” said Isaac D. Chaput, a partner in Covington’s San Francisco office. “We admire the courage of our clients to stand up to this attempt to deprive them of these fundamental rights, and we’re proud to represent them alongside the ACLU and ACLU of Massachusetts.”
Today’s lawsuit argues the Passport Policy implemented by the State Department violates the Administrative Procedures Act because it is unconstitutional and arbitrary and capricious, and because it failed to comply with requirements to provide notice and comment for changes to government forms. The lawsuit also asserts that the State Department’s actions violate transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people’s rights under the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution by unlawfully restricting their freedom of movement, as well as their rights under the Equal Protection Clause by unjustifiably discriminating against them on the basis of their sex. The policy also violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by requiring people to have a sex designation on their passport that conflicts with their identity and potentially outs them to others. This violates the First Amendment’s protection against being required to convey governmental ideological messages they disagree with.
https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2025/02/orrvtrumpstamped.pdf
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