Trump scores major Supreme Court win after setting out to ban these specific passports in the US
Topics: US News, Politics, Travel, Donald Trump
Lucy Devine
Featured Image Credit: Getty Images/Kevin Dietsch
Topics: US News, Politics, Travel, Donald Trump
President Trump has secured a major victory at the Supreme Court after he set out to ban specific passports in the US.
On Thursday (November 6), the Supreme Court allowed Trump to enforce the policy which sees the 'X' marker used on passports removed.
Now, the documents must reflect the person's 'biological sex at birth'.
Prior to Trump's second term and as per the Joe Biden administration, any non-binary person and those who wished to put 'X' as their gender on their passports were able to do so, a change which was implemented in October 2021.
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When Trump was inaugurated back in January this year, he signed around 200 executive orders, one of which was titled 'Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government'.
It states that trans identities and non-binary identities will not be recognised in the law and also affected people's passports.
However, in April, the ban was blocked by a federal judge.
US District Judge, Julia Kobick 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. The government has failed to meet this standard.”
Fast-forward six months and the High Court has agreed to freeze the order that banned Trump enforcing the policy.
The Supreme Court was split 6-3 in the decision.
"Displaying passport holders' sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth — in both cases, the Government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment," the court said.
"And on this record, respondents have failed to establish that the Government's choice to display biological sex 'lack[s] any purpose other than a bare... desire to harm a politically unpopular group.'"
However, Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson has said that the policy means transgender Americans will be forced to make difficult choices.
Jackson said:" Absent an injunction, the plaintiffs and the classes of transgender Americans they represent are forced to make a difficult choice that no other Americans face: use gender-incongruent passports and risk harassment and bodily invasions, on the one hand, or avoid all activities (travel, opening a bank account, renting a car, starting a new job) that may require a passport, on the other.
"The harm to these individuals from having to make that choice—before their legal challenges have even been resolved—is palpable."
The latest win for the Trump administration means that people can no longer show their chosen identity on their passport.