Judge blocks Trump admin's ban on 'X' gender marker on passports, claims it will cause 'anxiety' for trans people

After taking office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order reversing the Biden administration's gender mandates, such as their alterations to Title IX, DEI prioritization of LGBTQ+ issues and persons, and allowing an "x" gender marker on passports. Now, Biden-appointed Judge Julia Kobick has said that the "x" null gender marker must remain an option in federal government documents.

In her ruling, Kobick upheld the idea that it is harmful to people who identify as transgender for the government to not acknowledge their emotional or dysphoric feelings about their own identity. She said that the State Department's determination to not allow the "x" marker and to force people to list their sex not gender identity, "likely violates the constitutional rights of thousands of Americans."

Kobick said that the policy would cause transgender-identified persons to "experience anxiety and psychological distress or fear for their safety if they were required to travel with passports bearing a sex designation corresponding to their sex assigned at birth, largely because they would effectively ‘out’ themselves every time they presented their passports." There are many nations that do not accept the "x" gender marker as valid on transit documents.

Passports, which for the entirety of their existence in America, citizens could only check off their biological sex, male or female. The Biden administration expanded that to include an "x" box that citizens can use to indicate their personal belief that they are neither male nor female, in direction opposition to biological reality.

Passports are meant to identify people, not to express their personal beliefs about themselves. One cannot indicate, for example, that their eye color is brown if their natural eye color is blue.

In her ruling, Kobick extended her ruling to prevent the Trump administration's removal of the "x" marker to go through, saying that the suit against the policy is likely to succeed. Her reasoning is that she believes that the policy against the "x" is discriminatory on the basis of sex. People of either sex are able to choose the "x" marker, yet Kobick said that the Trump administration's reversal of Biden's policy is "arbitrary and capricious" and "rooted in irrational prejudice toward transgender Americans."

All people who identify as transgender are either born male or female. Kobick said in her ruling that "transgender and non-binary people who possess passports bearing sex markers that conflict with their gender identity and expression are… significantly more likely to experience psychological distress, suicidality, harassment, discrimination, and violence," going on to say that "obtaining gender concordant identity documents is part of the standard of care for treating gender dysphoria."

The lawsuit is ongoing and Kobick's order is an extension of her earlier temporary order.