U.S. Passport Policy in Peril After Trump’s Controversial Visit Ban

In a recent turn of events that’s left many scratching their heads and others cheering, Donald Trump’s latest move to simplify the world into binaries got a proverbial thumbs-down from the court. Amidst a swirl of executive orders aimed at reversing the past administration’s policies—think returning to the days when ‘healthcare’ and ‘immigration’ were less tangled and more two-dimensional—Trump tried to erase the ‘X’ gender marker option from passports, aiming to enforce a binary view of gender akin to a child’s flip book. The question we’re all pondering: in a world that’s more than in need of embracing complexity, must we really reduce everything to just two options? The President seems to think, ‘Yup, that’s all there is, folks!’ But guess what? A federal judge stepped in and said, ‘Nope, we’re not doing that here. Equality is fundamental, not a gendered construct.’

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Donald Trump’s plans to ban passports which recognise non-binary as a gender status have been blocked by a federal judge.

The 78-year-old President has made a lot of changes since returning to the White House, including reversing a lot of policies that his predecessor Joe Biden introduced.

He signed hundreds of executive orders right after being reinstated as commander-in-chief, making tweaks to US regulations on healthcare and immigration, among a myriad of other things.

Trump also wanted to change the way members of the LGBTQ+ community, who identify as non-binary as well as intersex people, list their sex on travel documents.

When Biden was in office, he allowed people applying for passports to choose ‘X’ as their gender, rather than just having the options of ‘M’ and ‘F’ for male or female.

This has been in effect since October 2021, but Trump wanted to get rid of this promptly when he became President again.

One of the many executive orders he signed on his first day in office was titled ‘Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.’

The executive order signed by Trump explained that the US now only recognises two genders (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

This narrows the definition of gender in the US, stating that a person is either male or female, while rejecting the idea that someone could transition into a different sex than what they were born as.

It stated: “It is the policy of the United States to recognise two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”

The order also explained that changes would be implemented requiring that ‘government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards, accurately reflect the holder’s sex.’

Passport applications for those who had ticked the ‘X’ box were frozen after this executive order was introduced.

According to The Guardian, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent an email to state department staff saying: “The policy of the United States is that an individual’s sex is not changeable.”

Employees were reportedly ordered to ‘suspend any application requesting an X sex marker’, and to ‘suspend any application where the applicant is seeking to change their sex marker’ from Trump’s revised definition.

But a federal judge has now blocked the Trump administration from applying this policy, in wake of a lawsuit that was lodged by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of several transgender and non-binary individuals.

It argued that the new passport policy would not allow people to apply for an accurate passport, with the lawyer representing the ACLU, Sruti Swaminathan, saying it ‘demonised’ these applicants.

Non-binary and intersex passport applicants would no longer be able to use ‘X’ to describe their gender (Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images)

“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,” Swaminathan said.

The White House insisted that the new rules would ‘not violate the equal protection guarantees of the Constitution’ and that the plaintiffs of the case could still apply for a passport, just without being able to use ‘X’ as an option.

US District Judge Julia Kobick, who was appointed by Biden, sided with the ACLU’s application for a preliminary injunction.

Expressing her reasons why, she said, as per the Independent: “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.

“That standard requires the government to demonstrate that its actions are substantially related to an important governmental interest,” Judge Kobick said. “The government has failed to meet this standard.”

The judge added that the plaintiffs proved that they would succeed in demonstrating the new passport policy and executive order ‘are based on irrational prejudice toward transgender Americans and therefore offend our Nation’s constitutional commitment to equal protection for all Americans.’

Li Nowlin-Sohl, who is also part of the ACLU’s legal team’, said Judge Kobick’s ruling marked a ‘historic win.’

“This decision is a critical victory against discrimination and for equal justice under the law,” Li Nowlin-Sohl said, as per AP.

“But it’s also a historic win in the fight against this administration’s efforts to drive transgender people out of public life. The State Department’s policy is a baseless barrier for transgender and intersex Americans and denies them the dignity we all deserve.”