Judge temporarily blocks Trump administration from making changes to passport gender markers

A federal judge on Friday partially blocked the Trump administration from enacting a policy that bans the use of "X" marker used by many nonbinary people on passports, as well as the changing of gender markers.

U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, sided with the American Civil Liberties Union's motion for a preliminary injunction, which stays the action while the lawsuit plays out. It requires the State Department to allow six transgender and nonbinary people who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit to obtain passports with sex designations consistent with their gender identity.

"The Executive Order and the Passport Policy on their face classify passport applicants on the basis of sex and thus must be reviewed under intermediate judicial scrutiny," Kobick wrote. "That standard requires the government to demonstrate that its actions are substantially related to an important governmental interest. The government has failed to meet this standard."