In a vote of 6-3, the Supreme Court has ruled that President Trump has the constitutional authority to end the Biden-era non-binary option on passports. The ruling struck down lower court rulings halting the order.
DOJ Solicitor General John Sauer argued to the Supreme Court, “The President’s choice to revert to prior policy and rely on biological sex—a choice that bound the State Department—should be the last place for novel equal-protection claims or Administrative Procedure Act objections.”
The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision on Thursday, allowed President Trump to enforce a new policy that has ended the use of the “X” marker on passports. The high court issued the decision in an unsigned order.
President Trump signed an executive order shortly after his inauguration, which directed agencies like the State Department and Homeland Security to issue IDs, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards, based solely on biological sex assigned at birth.
This reversed prior allowances for self-selected genders, including “X” for unspecified. The anti-American ACLU represented transgender individuals who sued over the Trump Administration’s passport policy. Two liberal district court judges struck down the Trump Administration’s new passport policy.