A federal judge has ruled that the policy of US President Donald Trump's administration to deny passports to transgender and non-binary Americans based on their self-identified gender, rather than their biological gender, is very likely unconstitutional.
However, the court will not block the implementation of the measure at the national level, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
District Judge Julia Kobik of Boston issued a preliminary injunction, according to which the implementation of the policy will be suspended for only six of a total of seven transgender and non-binary people who filed a lawsuit against the measure, which was introduced by the US State Department at the behest of Trump.
Kobik accepted that the passport policy and the related presidential order constitute discrimination on the basis of sex and stem from "bias" to transgender Americans, which, according to the judge, is a violation of the principles enshrined in the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution.
"The executive order and the passport policy are based on irrational prejudice against transgender Americans and thus violate our country's constitutional obligation to guarantee equal protection to all Americans," Kobik wrote in her reasoning.
Although she ordered the State Department to allow the six plaintiffs to receive their passports with their desired gender inscribed on them, they have not shown that there is a reason to block the policy at the national level.
"We will do everything we can to ensure that this order extends to everyone else who is affected by this wrong and unconstitutional policy, so that we can all be ourselves," said Lee Nowlin-Soll, a lawyer for the plaintiffs from the organization "American Civil Liberties Union" freedoms".
The State Department and the White House have not yet commented.
The case is one of several filed nationwide against an executive order signed by Trump on January 20 that would recognize only two biological sexes - male and female.
In this regard, the executive order also instructs the State Department to issue passports that "accurately reflect the gender of the holder".
Soon after, the US State Department changed its policy and began "requiring the biological sex at birth of the applicant for a passport", rather than allowing applicants to determine their own gender; since then, only male and female are allowed on the forms.
Kobik is an appointee of Trump's predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden. The former president himself commented that the policy change is an end to a 30-year practice in which the State Department allowed people to update their gender information on their passports.
In 2022, the "Biden" administration allowed passport applicants to select an "X" box, which means gender neutral, and also to choose which box to cross out "M" or "F" for male or female.