Washington (AFP) – A federal US judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to resume issuing passports to transgender Americans with “X” as their gender designation, a practice suspended since Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Following Trump’s executive order in January, the State Department said it would only recognize two genders — male and female — ending official policies that recognized a third gender, denoted by an “X” on US passports.
In April, US District Judge Julia Kobick in Boston issued a preliminary injunction against that policy, but that ruling applied only to six transgender and non-binary people who had sued the government over the passport policy. The State Department appealed that move Friday.
On Tuesday, Kobick went further in her ruling by extending it to all transgender and non-binary Americans affected by the policy change and ordered the State Department to resume issuing these passports pending a judgment on the merits of the case or a decision by a higher court.
The State Department first issued such a passport in October 2021 under President Joe Biden, with the X gender marker reserved for non-binary, intersex, and gender non-conforming individuals. In his inauguration speech at the US Capitol, Trump said “as of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.”
© 2024 AFP
