Transgender individuals challenged President Trump’s executive order recognizing one’s sex — male or female — at birth over concerns that the Departments of State and Homeland Security are no longer issuing passports for trans people based on their gender identity.
In a federal lawsuit filed Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union says Mr. Trump’s “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” which declares that sex is determined at conception, forces trans people to out themselves. The group argues the order ran afoul of federal lawmaking under the Administrative Procedures Act.
Prior to the order, the executive agencies were allowing people to identify as male, female or by “X” to correspond to their gender identity. But now, the agencies have been rejecting applications from trans people and returning documents with their birth sex noted, according to the ACLU.
The advocacy organization says it has been contacted by more than 1,500 people concerned over the impact of the president’s order.
“The results may be catastrophic, including causing serious psychological harm, denial of the ability to enter or leave a country, physical violence from people who despise transgender people, and even the passport holder being arrested and imprisoned by border control agents in foreign countries,” the lawsuit read.
Reid Solomon-Lane from North Adams, Massachusetts is one of the plaintiffs, who said he has lived as a male for his adult life and everyone — including strangers — views him as a male.
“I thought that 18 years after transitioning, I would be able to live my life in safety and ease. Now, as a married father of three, Trump’s executive order and the ensuing passport policy have threatened that life of safety and ease. If my passport were to reflect a sex designation that is inconsistent with who I am, I would be forcibly outed every time I used my passport for travel or identification, causing potential risk to my safety and my family’s safety,” he said.
The lawsuit asks the court to halt the president’s policy and to determine that it violates trans peoples’ constitutional rights.
“The federal Passport Policy rashly requires passports to list only either female or male based on newly concocted and scientifically inaccurate definitions of an individual’s sex determined by whether they ‘belong[], at conception, to the sex that produces’ either ‘the large’ or ‘the small reproductive cell,’” the lawsuit read.
“The Passport Policy is unlawful and unconstitutional. It discriminates against individuals based on their sex and, as to some, their transgender status. It is motivated by impermissible animus. It cannot be justified under any level of judicial scrutiny, and it wrongly seeks to erase the reality that transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people exist today as they always have.”
It was filed in the U.S. District of Massachusetts.
The lawsuit, Orr et al v. Trump, President of the United States et al, estimates roughly 1.6 million Americans are transgender. It notes that roughly 22 states allow people to identify as male, female or by “X” for birth certificates and driver’s licenses.
A spokesperson from the Trump Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.