U.S. Passport Update: July 3, 2025
I write today with an important update on the United States passport policy and processing for transgender passport holders and applicants.
Since January 20, the Trump Administration has targeted the LGBTQ+ community, and the transgender community in particular, launching a barrage of legal attacks to restrict the rights of transgender and other queer folks in the United States. On January 20, Trump signed executive orders denying the existence of transgender and intersex people and denying their freedom of movement. The ACLU, ready to defend queer liberty, filed suit in the District of Massachusetts: Orr v. Trump.
The Court in Orr has issued a number of injunctions and court orders over the past few months, generally in favor of the Plaintiffs seeking to enforce their Constitutional rights. For my fellow law nerds, you can read the docket here. On June 17, Judge Julia E. Kobick issued a preliminary injunction in Orr v. Trump prohibiting enforcement of the anti-transgender policy and ordering the federal government to resume processing passports for transgender folks.
The ACLU summarizes the June 17 ruling:
Today’s ruling from the court means that a passport with a sex designation that aligns with one’s gender identity or with an “X” sex designation should be made available to anyone applying to:
Obtain a new passport
change the sex designation or update their name on their current passport
Replace a lost, stolen, or damaged passport, or
Renew their passport within one year of its expiration.
This includes those who, under the Trump administration’s policy, were previously sent a passport with a sex designation listing their sex assigned at birth after applying for a new, renewed, or replaced passport, and/or a changed name or gender marker.
On July 2nd, Erin in the Morning reported that the federal government has resumed processing passports for certain transgender applicants. The Department of State website was updated the same day to reflect this policy change.
This great news comes with a big asterisk for transgender folks who are concerned with privacy: for certified class passport applicants, special and potentially sensitive data will be collected and kept by the federal government indefinitely. For transgender folks seeking to have the injunction, which requires the government to process passports, enforced in their case, the passport applicant will have to provide information which shows that they qualify as a member of the class receiving relief under the lawsuit. For more on what this means, please read the Erin in the Morning article breaking the news. Further, The Trump administration continues to balk at lawful court orders, so the ACLU is preparing for a July 10 hearing on a motion to enforce the injunction.
Last month, our community celebrated Pride–an acknowledgment of our resilience and an opportunity to share our collective joy. But we do not ever forget the struggle that gave us the celebration. Our liberation and freedom to celebrate in the streets was earned in large part due to transgender women of color who were beaten or killed by cops, who were jailed for daring to perform their gender differently, and who decided that enough was enough and made their stand at bars in NYC in the summer of 1969.
Fast forward to the summer of 2025, 56 years later, the Trump administration wants to roll back queer human rights. For 163 days, transgender folks were denied passports. People could not travel to see sick family members, could not conduct business or study abroad, could not travel across the border in places like Niagara Falls, New York or Point Roberts, Washington where international travel is a casual and daily occurrence. Freedom to travel, freedom of expression, freedom to spend time in public with your spouse or loved ones. For the queer community, these are recent wins, and we are still fighting for basic recognition of our identities, for the right to exist in public.
