On November 6, 2025, the United States Supreme Court delivered a decision that sent shockwaves through the LGBTQ community and reignited fierce debate over civil rights and executive authority. In a 6-3 ruling, the Court allowed the Trump administration to enforce a policy requiring that all U.S. passports display sex markers corresponding to the holder’s sex assigned at birth—effectively overturning recent progress made under the Biden administration for transgender and nonbinary Americans seeking accurate identification.
The case, Trump v. Orr, centered on a challenge brought by plaintiff Ashton Orr, a trans-identifying male, and others who argued that the policy violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause. For more than three decades, the federal government had permitted transgender people to update the gender marker on their passports to reflect their gender identity, rather than their sex assigned at birth. In 2021, President Biden’s administration went a step further, removing documentation requirements and allowing nonbinary individuals to select an “X” marker after years of litigation—a change hailed by advocates as a long-overdue recognition of gender diversity.
But the landscape shifted in January 2025, when President Trump issued an executive order declaring that the United States would “recognize two sexes, male and female,” based on birth certificates and “biological classification.” According to The Dispatch, this order reversed the Biden-era policy and prompted the State Department to begin issuing passports with sex markers strictly limited to male or female, based on the applicant’s birth certificate. The new rule quickly drew lawsuits from transgender and nonbinary people, many of whom recounted experiences of harassment, invasive strip searches, and accusations of fraud when their identification documents failed to match their gender presentation.
A federal district court responded to these concerns by temporarily blocking the Trump policy in June 2025, finding that it was likely arbitrary, capricious, and rooted in animus toward trans people. The court also noted that the government had failed to demonstrate any tangible harm resulting from the previous, more inclusive passport policy. As Slate reported, the lower courts found that the harm to transgender and nonbinary people was “immense,” while the government “couldn’t point to any example of the gender marker being used as fraud.”
However, Solicitor General D. John Sauer took the fight to the Supreme Court, arguing that the Biden-era policy was inaccurate and inconsistent with recent Supreme Court rulings—such as the decision upholding a ban on transition-related health care for transgender minors. The Trump administration asserted that the passport policy was a matter of foreign affairs, an area where the executive branch traditionally enjoys broad latitude.
The Supreme Court’s unsigned order sided with the administration, stating, “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 majority dismissed the harms documented by the district court, instead emphasizing the government’s interest in maintaining control over foreign policy and official documents.
The decision was met with immediate praise from Trump administration officials and conservative allies. White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly called it “a victory for common sense and President Trump, who was resoundingly elected to eliminate woke gender ideology from our federal government.” Attorney General Pam Bondi echoed the sentiment, saying, “There are two sexes and Justice Department attorneys would continue to fight for that simple truth.” The Department of State announced that it was “rapidly developing guidance to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision.”
On the other side of the spectrum, LGBTQ advocates and the Court’s liberal justices decried the ruling as a dangerous setback for civil rights. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, delivered a forceful dissent. She wrote, “This Court has once again paved the way for the immediate infliction of injury without adequate (or, really, any) justification.” Justice Jackson argued that the majority had ignored the extensive factual record showing that transgender people face increased risks of violence, harassment, and discrimination when forced to carry passports that out them against their will.
Jon Davidson, senior counsel for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, underscored the real-world consequences: “Forcing transgender people to carry passports that out them against their will increases the risk that they will face harassment and violence. This is a heartbreaking setback for the freedom of all people to be themselves, and fuel on the fire the Trump administration is stoking against transgender people and their constitutional rights.”
The dissenting justices further criticized the majority for what they saw as a pattern of prioritizing executive policy preferences over the rights of minority groups, especially when cases are decided through the Court’s so-called “shadow docket”—brief, unsigned orders issued without full briefing or oral argument. Justice Jackson warned, “Such senseless sidestepping of the obvious equitable outcome has become an unfortunate pattern. So, too, has my own refusal to look the other way when basic principles are selectively discarded.”
Transgender actor Hunter Schafer’s experience illustrates the confusion and distress caused by the policy shift. In February 2025, Schafer reported that her new passport had been issued with a male gender marker, despite having female markers on her driver’s license and previous passports for years. According to The Dispatch, plaintiffs like Schafer argue that mismatched documents are not only inaccurate but can be unsafe, exposing individuals to suspicion and even violence during routine travel.
The Supreme Court’s decision also highlights the broader debate over the role of executive orders and the extent of presidential power. As Slate pointed out, the majority’s reasoning marks a departure from previous practice by treating harm to executive policy as equivalent to harm to democratically enacted statutes—potentially expanding the president’s authority in future disputes.
Meanwhile, the State Department is moving swiftly to implement the new guidance, as the lawsuit over the policy continues to make its way through the courts. For now, transgender and nonbinary Americans seeking to travel abroad must navigate a system that, once again, fails to recognize their lived identities.
As the legal battle continues, the case stands as a stark reminder of the precariousness of civil rights gains and the profound impact that executive and judicial decisions have on the day-to-day lives of marginalized Americans. Whether the policy will ultimately survive constitutional scrutiny remains to be seen, but for now, the struggle over identity, recognition, and equal protection under the law is far from settled.
