US3 min(s) read
Published 15:00 19 Apr 2025 GMT
President Donald Trump has planned to ban specific passports, and here's what you need to know about it.
Since reclaiming the presidency on January 20, Trump has wasted no time signing off on a storm of executive orders - about 200 of them - touching on everything from climate change and immigration to the LGBTQ+ community.
And one of those orders just sparked a serious legal showdown.
Titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” the executive order declared that only two genders - male and female - would be recognized under U.S. law, per ABC News.
That means, according to Trump’s administration, trans and non-binary identities no longer legally exist.
And the ripple effects? They hit hard, especially for non-binary folks whose gender identity had previously been recognized on federal documents - most notably, passports.
Under President Joe Biden, non-binary Americans were able to mark an “X” on their passports starting in October 2021. But under Trump’s order, those “X” applications were frozen. In short: no more gender-neutral passports.
In an email obtained by The Guardian, Secretary of State Marco Rubio doubled down on the change: “The policy of the United States is that an individual’s sex is not changeable.” He added that documents like passports and consular reports of birth abroad must now reflect sex, not gender.
So, what’s new?
Here's the update that just turned everything on its head: A federal judge has officially blocked the ban.
US District Judge Julia Kobick didn’t hold back. According to The Independent, she ruled: “The Executive Order and the Passport Policy on their face classify passport applicants on the basis of sex and thus must be reviewed under intermediate judicial scrutiny.”
In short, if the government wants to enforce something like this, it has to prove that the policy is closely tied to an important governmental interest. According to Kobick, they failed to do that.
She continued, stating that the plaintiffs in the case have shown that the new rules “are based on irrational prejudice toward transgender Americans and therefore offend our Nation’s constitutional commitment to equal protection for all Americans.”
The lawsuit was spearheaded by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), representing five transgender individuals and two non-binary plaintiffs.
Their legal argument is that the policy would prevent them from getting accurate identity documents.
Sruti Swaminathan, a lawyer for the ACLU, said: “We all have a right to accurate identity documents, and this policy invites harassment, discrimination, and violence against transgender Americans who can no longer obtain or renew a passport that matches who they are.”
But the Trump administration pushed back, claiming the policy “does not violate the equal protection guarantees of the Constitution.”
Their stance is that affected individuals can still apply for and use passports - they just have to use sex markers (male or female) instead of gender-neutral ones.
According to Trump’s team, the plaintiffs wouldn't be harmed by the gender restriction and could “travel freely.” Just not with a passport that reflects their gender identity.
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