ACLU Fights Trump on Gender-Affirming Passports

On October 6, ACLU attorneys asked the Supreme Court to reject the Trump administration’s halt on gender-affirming passports.

According to PinkNews, on June 17, Judge Julie Kobick expanded a preliminary injunction, preventing the Trump administration from banning the issuing of passports with gender-affirming markers. This injunction responded to the case of Orr v. Trump, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in February 2025. This granted the case as “class action status,” and required the State department to resume issuing correct gender markers on transgender and non-binary American’s passports.

Li Nowlin-Sohl—the staff attorney on the ACLU’s LGBTQ and HIV project—responded to the Trump Administration’s request to stay this injunction, claiming, “The lower courts have made abundantly clear how discriminatory and baseless the State Department’s new policy is and the harm it poses for hundreds of thousands of people like our clients.”

They add that, “People across the country depend on identity documents that accurately reflect their identity–who they are in their workplaces, their schools, and their communities. The administration’s attempts to deny that right to transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people has no basis in law or policy, and we’ll continue to fight this policy until it is permanently defeated.”

Another member of the ACLU, Jessis Rossman, the legal director of the Massachusetts branch of the ACLU, continues, “Transgender, nonbinary, and intersex Americans rely on accurate identity documents to travel with safety, privacy, and dignity. We are asking the Supreme Court to reject this request for a stay and preserve the injunction issued below so our clients will be spared profound disruption and distress while their case proceeds.”

Following that June ruling, the ACLU and LGBTQ+ people nationwide rejoiced. We can only hope that the Supreme Court listens and maintains the injunction, and that more broadly, trans, non-binary, and intersex individuals’ gender-affirming documents will be protected.