Trump passport policy targeting transgender people likely unconstitutional, Judge rules

Judge rules Trump passport policy likely unconstitutional, allows six plaintiffs to obtain passports reflecting gender identities.

A federal Judge held on Friday (April 18, 2025) that the Trump administration's policy of refusing to issue passports to transgender and nonbinary Americans that reflect their gender identities is likely unconstitutional, but she declined to block it nationwide.

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U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick in Boston issued a preliminary injunction that stopped the enforcement of the policy against six of the seven transgender and nonbinary people who sued to challenge the policy adopted by the U.S. Department of State at Republican President Donald Trump's direction.

Ms. Kobick said the passport policy and a related executive order signed by Mr. Trump that directed the change discriminated on the basis of sex and sprang from an "animus" toward transgender Americans that violated the equal protection principles safeguarded by the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment.

"The Executive Order and Passport Policy are based on irrational prejudice toward transgender Americans and therefore offend our Nation's constitutional commitment to equal protection for all Americans," Ms. Kobick wrote.

Although Ms. Kobick ordered the State Department to allow six plaintiffs to obtain passports with sex designations consistent with their gender identities, she said they had not shown why they were entitled to an order blocking the policy nationally.

"We will do everything we can to ensure this order is extended to everyone affected by the administration's misguided and unconstitutional policy so that we all have the freedom to be ourselves," Li Nowlin-Sohl, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.