Latest news with #JuliaE.Kobick
Time of India
19-06-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
US judge blocks Trump administration's ‘Passport Gender Policy'
In a significant ruling , Judge Julia E. Kobick of the federal district court (District of Massachusetts) recently issued a preliminary injunction, halting the US State Department's enforcement of a US passport policy that exclusively recognized an individual's gender assigned at birth. This decision also granted class certification, extending the benefits of the injunction to a broader group of individuals. The lawsuit filed by a group of individuals on February 7, 2025, previously saw a limited injunction on April 18, 2025, benefiting only the plaintiffs. The expanded order, however, recognizes a class of individuals who do not identify with their birth-assigned gender. This includes those without a valid passport, those needing to renew within a year, individuals requiring passport changes to align with their gender identity or a name change, or those applying for a new passport due to loss, theft, or damage. The preliminary injunction specifically blocks the State Department from enforcing the passport policy developed under President Trump's January 20, 2025, Executive Order 14168, titled 'Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government'. The court has ordered the State Department to process and issue passports to affected individuals consistent with the policy in effect on January 19, 2025, which permitted applicants to select an 'M' (Male), 'F' (Female), or 'X' (non-binary) marker reflecting their gender identity. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Eat 1 Teaspoon Every Night, See What Happens A Week Later [Video] getfittoday Undo To verify class membership, the State Department may require applicants to affirm certain conditions on their passport application, including a confirmation that their gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth or that they have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, alongside the reason for their passport application. This ruling means US citizens who do not identify with their gender assigned at birth can now apply for and receive passports that accurately reflect their gender identity. However, the Trump Administration is widely expected to appeal this injunction and may seek an emergency stay.
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Judge Blocks Trump's Anti-Trans Passport Policy
A federal judge on Fridayblocked the Trump administration from enforcing its policy barring trans people from updating the sex marker on their passports. U.S. District Judge Julia E. Kobick in Boston sided the with American Civil Liberties Union's push for a preliminary injunction while the lawsuit continues. 'The Executive Order and the Passport Policy on their face classify passport applicants on the basis of sex and thus must be reviewed under intermediate judicial scrutiny,' Kobick wrote in the partial injunction. 'That standard requires the government to demonstrate that its actions are substantially related to an important governmental interest. The government has failed to meet this standard.' The preliminary injunction offers temporary relief and only applies to six of the trans and nonbinary plaintiffs in the case, requiring the State Department to allow them to obtain passports that reflect their sex markers consistent with their gender identity. The plaintiffs plan to file another motion to ask the court to extend the injunction to trans and nonbinary people nationwide. Within hours of returning to office in January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that the United States would only recognize 'two sexes, male and female.' A few days later, the State Department began suspending all passport applications from people requesting an X gender marker or a marker that differed from one on a previous passport. In early February, seven transgender and nonbinary people filed a lawsuit, Orr v. Trump, after many of the plaintiffs had tried to renew their passports and ended up with documents with inaccurate sex markers. The American Civil Liberties Union, which sued the federal government on behalf of the plaintiffs, argued that the executive order, and subsequent passport policy, are unconstitutional, and will cause harm and infringe on trans people rights to privacy. 'This policy makes it incredibly unsafe for trans, nonbinary, and intersex people to travel when they don't have accurate identification — whether it's being forced to use a passport that outs them as transgender and nonbinary to strangers, including by disclosing their birth sex at every use or whether it's being fearful of being in other countries that are even more hostile [toward trans folks] than the United States,' Sruti Swaminathan, an attorney at the ACLU, told HuffPost ahead of the decision. The State Department did not follow the Administrative Procedure Act when it began to comply with the executive order defining 'sex' by issuing its own policy, the ACLU argues. Under that law, federal agencies are required to follow certain standards for formal rulemaking, including publishing notice of the rule and allowing for public comment. 'That change was not announced with 60 days' notice in the Federal Register or any other public consultation. Indeed it was not announced at all,' the ACLU's complaint read. 'The State Department made the change surreptitiously.' The department's quiet policy change had immediate ramifications for scores of trans and nonbinary people seeking to update their passports — throwing many people's plans around international travel, employment and medical care into jeopardy. A few days before Trump's inauguration, Ash Orr, a trans organizer in Morgantown, West Virginia, and the eponymous plaintiff in the lawsuit, submitted an expedited application to update his passport sex marker as well as his last name. A few weeks later, after sending his previous passport, birth certificate and marriage license to the State Department, Orr said he received a call from a supervisor in a California passport agency who told him he would need to 'prove my biological sex.' 'That's when I realized: I'm not going to have my passport back in a timely manner,' Orr told HuffPost. He was supposed to leave the U.S. on March 13 so he could go to Ireland for an appointment for gender-affirming medical care. Getting health care outside the U.S. felt safer, and he was already forced to travel outside of his red state to access hormone therapy. Orr was forced to cancel his trip because he didn't get his passport back until March 27. He said that when his passport was returned, it still had an inaccurate sex marker. His marriage license was ripped and crumpled, and his original birth certificate was still missing at the time he spoke with HuffPost in late March. 'The reality is that I am trapped,' Orr said. The Trump administration argued in the suit that the passport policy did not 'violate the equal protection guarantees of the Constitution.' They also argued that the president has the authority to set passport policies and that the plaintiffs would still be able to travel abroad. Many plaintiffs in the case Kobick ruled on however have reported similar concerns and experiences. One anonymous plaintiff, identified as Bella Boe, worried that her application to get an 'F' marker on her passport would be rejected and she would lose out on the opportunity to travel to Bermuda with her college's theatre troupe. Her passport was returned with an inaccurate 'M' marker. Chastain Anderson, another plaintiff, wrote in an affidavit that she fears she may not only miss out on international travel for her work as a toxicologist, but that she will be subjected to invasive security screenings at airport checkpoints. Before she updated the sex on her Virginia driver's license, Anderson said she was forced to undergo a strip search by a TSA agent at the airport in Richmond, Virginia, in 2017. She also was not permitted to update her passport after the State Department's policy. 'I felt that it was a direct result of the fact that my body did not match my sex designation on my license,' Chastain wrote. 'I am no stranger to these experiences, but I have not had to confront them since having accurate identification.' The order is just one of several injunctions issued by federal judges to halt Trump's broad executive orders that have threatened to upend and reshape American society. Since Trump's return to office, he has tried to roll back protections for trans people, including limiting access to gender-affirming medical care, removing their ability to participate in school athletics and the military, and upsetting the flow of federal funding for programs that aid trans youth and adults. However, in many of the rulings, federal judges have found that Trump has tried to assert authority that the federal government does not have — and quietly skirt normal government rule making to push policies and regulations that are outwardly hostile to transgender people, particularly toward trans youth. In March, several judges ruled against Trump in cases challenging his administration's ban on transgender service members in the military. Two federal judgesissued pauses on Trump's executive order that threatened federal funding for institutions that provide gender-affirming care for anyone under 19.
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Judge Blocks Trump's Anti-Trans Passport Policy
A federal judge on Fridayblocked the Trump administration from enforcing its policy barring trans people from updating the sex marker on their passports. U.S. District Judge Julia E. Kobick in Boston sided the with American Civil Liberties Union's push for a preliminary injunction while the lawsuit continues. 'The Executive Order and the Passport Policy on their face classify passport applicants on the basis of sex and thus must be reviewed under intermediate judicial scrutiny,' Kobick wrote in the partial injunction. 'That standard requires the government to demonstrate that its actions are substantially related to an important governmental interest. The government has failed to meet this standard.' The preliminary injunction offers temporary relief and only applies to six of the trans and nonbinary plaintiffs in the case, requiring the State Department to allow them to obtain passports that reflect their sex markers consistent with their gender identity. The plaintiffs plan to file another motion to ask the court to extend the injunction to trans and nonbinary people nationwide. Within hours of returning to office in January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that the United States would only recognize 'two sexes, male and female.' A few days later, the State Department began suspending all passport applications from people requesting an X gender marker or a marker that differed from one on a previous passport. In early February, seven transgender and nonbinary people filed a lawsuit, Orr v. Trump, after many of the plaintiffs had tried to renew their passports and ended up with documents with inaccurate sex markers. The American Civil Liberties Union, which sued the federal government on behalf of the plaintiffs, argued that the executive order, and subsequent passport policy, are unconstitutional, and will cause harm and infringe on trans people rights to privacy. 'This policy makes it incredibly unsafe for trans, nonbinary, and intersex people to travel when they don't have accurate identification — whether it's being forced to use a passport that outs them as transgender and nonbinary to strangers, including by disclosing their birth sex at every use or whether it's being fearful of being in other countries that are even more hostile [toward trans folks] than the United States,' Sruti Swaminathan, an attorney at the ACLU, told HuffPost ahead of the decision. The State Department did not follow the Administrative Procedure Act when it began to comply with the executive order defining 'sex' by issuing its own policy, the ACLU argues. Under that law, federal agencies are required to follow certain standards for formal rulemaking, including publishing notice of the rule and allowing for public comment. 'That change was not announced with 60 days' notice in the Federal Register or any other public consultation. Indeed it was not announced at all,' the ACLU's complaint read. 'The State Department made the change surreptitiously.' The department's quiet policy change had immediate ramifications for scores of trans and nonbinary people seeking to update their passports — throwing many people's plans around international travel, employment and medical care into jeopardy. A few days before Trump's inauguration, Ash Orr, a trans organizer in Morgantown, West Virginia, and the eponymous plaintiff in the lawsuit, submitted an expedited application to update his passport sex marker as well as his last name. A few weeks later, after sending his previous passport, birth certificate and marriage license to the State Department, Orr said he received a call from a supervisor in a California passport agency who told him he would need to 'prove my biological sex.' 'That's when I realized: I'm not going to have my passport back in a timely manner,' Orr told HuffPost. He was supposed to leave the U.S. on March 13 so he could go to Ireland for an appointment for gender-affirming medical care. Getting health care outside the U.S. felt safer, and he was already forced to travel outside of his red state to access hormone therapy. Orr was forced to cancel his trip because he didn't get his passport back until March 27. He said that when his passport was returned, it still had an inaccurate sex marker. His marriage license was ripped and crumpled, and his original birth certificate was still missing at the time he spoke with HuffPost in late March. 'The reality is that I am trapped,' Orr said. The Trump administration argued in the suit that the passport policy did not 'violate the equal protection guarantees of the Constitution.' They also argued that the president has the authority to set passport policies and that the plaintiffs would still be able to travel abroad. Many plaintiffs in the case Kobick ruled on however have reported similar concerns and experiences. One anonymous plaintiff, identified as Bella Boe, worried that her application to get an 'F' marker on her passport would be rejected and she would lose out on the opportunity to travel to Bermuda with her college's theatre troupe. Her passport was returned with an inaccurate 'M' marker. Chastain Anderson, another plaintiff, wrote in an affidavit that she fears she may not only miss out on international travel for her work as a toxicologist, but that she will be subjected to invasive security screenings at airport checkpoints. Before she updated the sex on her Virginia driver's license, Anderson said she was forced to undergo a strip search by a TSA agent at the airport in Richmond, Virginia, in 2017. She also was not permitted to update her passport after the State Department's policy. 'I felt that it was a direct result of the fact that my body did not match my sex designation on my license,' Chastain wrote. 'I am no stranger to these experiences, but I have not had to confront them since having accurate identification.' The order is just one of several injunctions issued by federal judges to halt Trump's broad executive orders that have threatened to upend and reshape American society. Since Trump's return to office, he has tried to roll back protections for trans people, including limiting access to gender-affirming medical care, removing their ability to participate in school athletics and the military, and upsetting the flow of federal funding for programs that aid trans youth and adults. However, in many of the rulings, federal judges have found that Trump has tried to assert authority that the federal government does not have — and quietly skirt normal government rule making to push policies and regulations that are outwardly hostile to transgender people, particularly toward trans youth. In March, several judges ruled against Trump in cases challenging his administration's ban on transgender service members in the military. Two federal judgesissued pauses on Trump's executive order that threatened federal funding for institutions that provide gender-affirming care for anyone under 19.
New York Times
18-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Judge Rules Against Trump Administration on Passport Changes
A federal judge in Boston on Friday ordered the Trump administration to issue passports that reflect the self-identified gender of six transgender people rather than requiring that the passports display the sex on the applicants' original birth certificates. The order from Judge Julia E. Kobick was a victory, at least temporarily, for the six plaintiffs, who she said were likely to prevail on their claim that a new policy by the Trump administration amounts to a form of unconstitutional sex discrimination under the Fifth Amendment, as well as the Administrative Procedures Act. The State Department adopted the new policy earlier this year to comply with an executive order from President Trump directing all government agencies to limit official recognition of transgender identity. 'The plaintiffs have been personally disadvantaged by the government — they can no longer obtain a passport consistent with their gender identity — because of their sex assigned at birth,' wrote Judge Kobick, who was nominated by former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. 'The passport policy does indeed impose a special disadvantage on the plaintiffs due to their sex and the court therefore concludes that it discriminates on the basis of sex.' The judge's order on Friday applied only to six transgender plaintiffs who were seeking new passports and had sued the Trump administration. The order does not apply to a seventh plaintiff, who already holds a passport, valid until 2028, with the sex marker that corresponds to his gender identity. The order, which will remain in place as the case goes forward, does not bar the government from the new passport requirement for other transgender people. In court documents, the plaintiffs suing the government argued that a mismatch between the sex listed on their passport and the way they think of themselves and are perceived puts them at risk of suspicion and hostility that other Americans do not face. During the first several weeks of Mr. Trump's administration, two plaintiffs received passports with an 'F' or 'M' marker that was contrary to what they had requested. Another plaintiff learned that selecting an 'X' marker, indicating a nonbinary gender identity, was no longer an option in the application process, though it had been allowed since 2022. The restrictions on passports are part of a broad effort by the Trump administration to minimize the role of gender identity in how American society organizes itself. In the first of a series of executive orders on transgender issues, Mr. Trump characterized people whose gender does not match the sex on their birth certificate as 'making a false claim.' Gender identity, the order states, is not 'a replacement for sex' and 'does not provide a meaningful basis for identification.' Lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of the plaintiffs, several of whom live in Massachusetts. At a hearing in Boston and in court documents, Trump administration lawyers argued that the government has a strong interest in passports that accurately reflect the holder's sex. The government also urged the judge not to overestimate the harm the plaintiffs would endure if she were to decline to issue an injunction. 'They remain free to travel with the passports they have now or with passports issued pursuant to the passport policy,' the government lawyers wrote. 'Most plaintiffs have been traveling with a passport reflecting their birth sex for their entire lives.' But the judge on Friday said that the government had failed to demonstrate that its interest in maintaining uniform data on sex across government agencies bore a 'substantial relationship' to the new policy — the standard required to justify government policies or laws that discriminate on the basis of sex. She rejected the government's argument that the policy does not discriminate on the basis of sex because it applies to people of both sexes, saying that 'the focus of the inquiry must be whether, as applied to an individual, there exists a classification based on sex.' The judge also found that State Department was likely to be found to have violated the Administrative Procedures Act, which requires that agency policies not be 'arbitrary and capricious.' The State Department first allowed transgender people to change their sex marker in the early 1990s if they provided evidence that they had undergone transition surgery. In 2010, the department began accepting a letter from a doctor stating that an applicant had received 'appropriate clinical treatment for gender transition.' In 2021, the State Department issued the first passport with a gender-neutral marker — an 'X.' The next year, the Biden administration issued a new policy allowing passport applicants to choose 'M,' 'F' or 'X,' and replaced the term 'sex' with 'gender' on passport application forms, according to court documents. 'The State Department jettisoned its practice of more than 30 years with no explanation of the facts on which it premised its new determination and no consideration of the reliance interests in its prior policy,'' Judge Kobick wrote.
