WASHINGTON — The US Supreme Court on Thursday (6) authorized the Trump administration to stop issuing passports that include an indication of the gender identity chosen by applicants.
The preliminary decision, which will be in effect while the case continues to be processed in lower courts, represents yet another victory for President Donald Trump in the Supreme Court.
The lawsuit, called Trump v Orr, arose from a Trump administration policy that changed the rules for indicating gender on passports. Since June, this policy has been suspended by a decision by a federal court, which temporarily prohibited its application while the case is analyzed.
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The number of votes was not disclosed, as is common in these cases, but the majority of ministers justified the decision in four paragraphs.
“Showing the birth sex of passport holders does not violate the principles of equality any more than showing the country of birth — in both cases, the government only confirms a historical fact, without treating anyone differently,” wrote the ministers who supported the Trump administration, in an unsigned decision.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented and was joined by the court’s two other liberals, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.
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Jackson said it has become routine for the Trump administration to ask the Supreme Court for injunctive rulings whenever lower courts block its policies. “And, as it has also become routine, this court misinterprets its role,” he said.
She explained that she would reject the government’s request because “the real and documented harm to the plaintiffs is far greater than the government’s unexplained (and inexplicable) interest in immediately enforcing the passport policy.”
The process began in the early days of Trump’s second term, when he signed an executive order that led the State Department to cancel long-standing policies that allowed transgender people to update the gender indication on their travel documents.
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