The U.S. Supreme Court has granted the Trump administration permission to enforce its policy of requiring that every passport display a person’s true sex, a decision that blocks a lower court order and marks another victory for the administration on the high court’s emergency docket.
In an unsigned order issued Nov. 6, the conservative majority granted the administration’s application to stay a federal injunction from Massachusetts that had stopped the State Department from enforcing the policy. The ruling allows the government to implement the measure immediately while litigation continues in the First Circuit and possibly before the Supreme Court itself.
“Displaying passport holders’ sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth,” the majority wrote. “In both cases, the Government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment.”
The Court held that the Trump administration is “likely to succeed on the merits,” emphasizing that passport regulations fall within the executive branch’s foreign affairs authority.
The State Department adopted the new passport rule after President Donald Trump issued an executive order in January directing all federal agencies to recognize “two sexes, male and female,” determined by biological classification and recorded at birth. The rule replaces policies that, since 2021, had allowed Americans to self-select male, female, or “X” markers on their passports without medical documentation.
The ruling drew a sharp dissent from the Court’s three liberal justices — Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan — who criticized the majority for what they called an increasingly routine misuse of emergency orders.
The case, Trump v. Orr (No. 25A319), is one of several recent emergency rulings in which the Court has sided with the administration on social policy disputes. The stay will remain in effect through the appeals process and any subsequent review by the Supreme Court.
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