US Supreme Court Allows Trump Admin To Bar Trans People From Choosing Gender On Passports

Last Updated:November 07, 2025, 02:33 IST

The US Supreme Court allowed Trump administration to stop US passport applicants from designating the sex reflecting their gender identities on the document.

The US Supreme Court permitted the Trump administration to require passports to reflect sex assigned at birth, barring applicants from designating their gender identity. (IMAGE: REUTERS)

The US Supreme Court on Thursday allowed US President Donald Trump’s administration to bar applicants from designating the sex reflecting their gender identities when they apply for US passports, a move that is seen as the Republican president’s crackdown on the rights of transgender Americans.

America’s top court granted the Justice Department’s request to lift a judge’s order that had blocked the policy requiring passports to correspond only to a person’s sex assigned at birth. Meanwhile, a class action lawsuit challenging Trump administration’s action continues to play out.

According to Reuters, who first reported the development, said Trump administration’s policy reverses decades of practice at the US State Department, which since 1992 had permitted passport sex designations to differ from sex assigned at birth with medical documentation.

The court’s three liberal justices publicly dissented from the decision.

Under Democratic President Joe Biden, the State Department in 2021 allowed passport applicants to self-select a male or female sex marker without such documentation and added a third option “X" for nonbinary, intersex and gender non-conforming applicants.

Trump has targeted the rights of transgender people in a series of executive orders since returning to the presidency in January, including one stating that the US government will recognize only two sexes, male and female. Trump has cast the gender identity of transgender people as a lie.

The court in May allowed the administration to implement Trump’s ban on transgender people in the military. Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth subsequently has referred to transgender people as “dudes in dresses".

The administration has repeatedly asked the justices this year to intervene to allow implementation of Trump policies impeded by lower courts. The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has sided with the administration in almost every case it has been called upon to review since Trump returned to the presidency in January.

Shankhyaneel Sarkar

Shankhyaneel Sarkar is a Chief Sub-Editor at News18. He covers international affairs, where he focuses on breaking news to in-depth analyses. He has over seven years of experience during which he has covered se...Read More

Shankhyaneel Sarkar is a Chief Sub-Editor at News18. He covers international affairs, where he focuses on breaking news to in-depth analyses. He has over seven years of experience during which he has covered se...

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