The Trump administration must accept Americans’ claims of transgender identity when issuing passports, a judge said Tuesday.
In a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick granted the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification, which applies to “all people” who have a different gender identity “from the sex assigned to them under the Passport Policy and/or who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria,” and to people “who have applied, or who, but for the Passport Policy, would apply, for a U.S. passport issued” with a male or female marker that is different “from the sex assigned to that individual under the Passport Policy.”
Kobick’s order also certifies a “class of all people whose gender identity is different from the sex assigned to them under the Passport Policy and who have applied, or who, but for the Passport Policy, would apply, for a U.S. passport with an ‘X’” marker.
The preliminary injunction from Kobick expands upon an “earlier order she issued in April that had stopped” the Department of State from “enforcing the policy in the case of six people,” according to the Guardian.
Per the outlet:
The judge’s new order means that all trans citizens will be able to update their gender markers on their passports as the case against Donald Trump’s order proceeds.
As Breitbart News previously reported, in March, Kobick questioned why the Department of State was only issuing passports with male and female markers. Kobick questioned “what scientific data or alternatives” had been consulted before the agency issued guidance that they would not be issuing passports with an “X” marker on them.
In an executive order in January, President Donald Trump stated that it was “the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female.”
“These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,” the executive order continues.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem, “and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management” were also directed to “implement changes to require that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards, accurately reflect the holder’s sex,” the executive order continued.
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