‘Clearly Motivated by Animus that Serves Zero Public Interest’: Trans Americans Sue Over Passports
Trump order limits trans Americans' right to travel
Seven transgender Americans have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the State Department’s refusal to issue passports with accurate sex designations following Donald Trump’s executive order aiming to rollback the rights of trans Americans.
The plaintiffs are represented in the case by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
On his very first day sworn into office, Trump signed an executive order attempting to mandate discrimination against transgender people across the federal government and government programs. This included a directive to the departments of State and Homeland Security “to require that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards” reflect their sex “at conception.”
The ACLU said that it has been contacted through its legal intake form by more than 1,500 transgender people or family members, many with passport applications suspended or pending, who are concerned about being able to get passports that accurately reflect their identity.
For years, including throughout the first Trump administration, the State Department has allowed people to change the sex designation on their passport to be in alignment with their gender identity. In 2022, the State Department issued a revised policy making it easier to update the sex designation, and allowing individuals to select M, F, or X for their sex. Similar policies are used in 21 states plus the District of Columbia with regards to birth certificates and driver’s licenses as well as countries around the world.
Since the Executive Order was signed, the State Department has said publicly that applications to obtain a sex designation consistent with their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth have been “suspended.” An official with the White House has stated that the pending policy requiring passports to bear the holder’s sex assigned at birth will not be applied retroactively.
“I’ve lived virtually my entire adult life as a man. Everyone in my personal and professional life knows me as a man, and any stranger on the street who encountered me would view me as a man,” Reid Solomon-Lane of North Adams, Mass, said in an ACLU statement about the lawsuit. “I thought that 18 years after transitioning, I would be able to live my life in safety and ease. Now, as a married father of three, Trump’s executive order and the ensuing passport policy have threatened that life of safety and ease. If my passport were to reflect a sex designation that is inconsistent with who I am, I would be forcibly outed every time I used my passport for travel or identification, causing potential risk to my safety and my family’s safety.”
The new lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Massachusetts, and law firm Covington & Burling LLP, on behalf of seven people who have not been able to obtain passports that match who they are because of the State Department’s new Passport Policy or are likely to be impacted by the new policy upon their next renewal. The complaint was filed in the federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
“The plaintiffs in this case have had their lives disrupted by a chaotic policy clearly motivated by animus that serves zero public interest,” said Sruti Swaminathan, staff attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project. “Our clients need to travel for work, school, and family, and forcing them to carry documents that directly contradict what they know about themselves to be true — or withhold those documents altogether — is a blatant effort to violate their privacy and deny them their freedom to be themselves. We’re thankful for their participation in this lawsuit and are hopeful the court will see through this flagrant attempt to violate our plaintiffs' rights under the Constitution.”
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