Following an executive order from President Donald Trump barring people from updating the sex designation on their passports, seven people have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the State Department’s refusal to issue passports with accurate sex designations.
[…]
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.
[…]
On his first day in 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.” Under the ensuing Passport Policy, within 24 hours the State Department began holding some passports and other documents (such as birth certificates and court orders) submitted by transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people who had applied to update the sex designation on their U.S. passports and returning others with their applications rejected and their newly-issued passport marked with their sex assigned at birth.
[…]
[The] lawsuit argues the Passport Policy implemented by the State Department violates the Administrative Procedures Act because it is unconstitutional and arbitrary and capricious, and because it failed to comply with requirements to provide notice and comment for changes to government forms. The lawsuit also asserts that the State Department’s actions violate transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people’s rights under the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution by unlawfully restricting their freedom of movement, as well as their rights under the Equal Protection Clause by unjustifiably discriminating against them on the basis of their sex. The policy also violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by requiring people to have a sex designation on their passport that conflicts with their identity and potentially outs them to others. This violates the First Amendment’s protection against being required to convey governmental ideological messages they disagree with.
[…]