Latest news with #JuliaKobick
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Federal judge blocks Trump admin's gender-restrictive passport policy
A federal judge in Massachusetts has blocked the Trump administration's move to cease offering the X gender marker on U.S. passports or allowing passport holders to change their gender marker. Keep up with the latest in + news and politics. U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick, an appointee of President Joe Biden, granted a motion Friday for a preliminary injunction, which keeps the policy from being enforced while a lawsuit against it is heard, the Associated Press reports. The State Department implemented the policy, which affects transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people, in January in keeping with Donald Trump's executive order recognizing only male and female sexes and denying that one's gender can ever change — something that is at odds with the view of every major medical group. The policy does not affect existing passports but applies to new ones and renewals. Five trans people and two who are nonbinary filed suit against the policy in February in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts. '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, according to the AP. '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.' Those who sued are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, its Massachusetts affiliate, and the law firm of law firm Covington & Burling. 'We all have a right to accurate identity documents, and this policy invites harassment, discrimination, and violence against transgender Americans who can no longer obtain or renew a passport that matches who they are,' ACLU lawyer Sruti Swaminathan said, as reported by the AP. 'This decision is a critical victory against discrimination and for equal justice under the law,' Li Nowlin-Sohl, senior staff attorney for the ACLU's LGBTQ & HIV Project, added in a press release. 'But it's also a historic win in the fight against this administration's efforts to drive transgender people out of public life. The State Department's policy is a baseless barrier for transgender and intersex Americans and denies them the dignity we all deserve. We will do everything we can to ensure this order is extended to everyone affected by the administration's misguided and unconstitutional policy so that we all have the freedom to be ourselves.' 'This ruling affirms the inherent dignity of our clients, acknowledging the immediate and profound negative impact that the Trump administration's passport policy would have on their ability to travel for work, school, and family,' Jessie Rossman, legal director at ACLU of Massachusetts, said in the release. 'By forcing people to carry documents that directly contradict their identities, the Trump administration is attacking the very foundations of our right to privacy and the freedom to be ourselves. We will continue to fight to rescind this unlawful policy for everyone so that no one is placed in this untenable and unsafe position.' Under Biden, the State Department made the X option available to all applicants in 2022 and made it easier to change the gender marker. It had issued one passport with the X marker in 2021 — to Dana Zzyym, an intersex and nonbinary U.S. Navy veteran in Colorado who had sued the department for only offering a male or female choice on the passport application. Kobick had expressed skepticism about the Trump administration's passport policy when hearing arguments three weeks ago. 'It seems to deny that gender identity is something worth recognizing,' she said, according to Reuters. She also noted the 'slew of government actions against transgender and nonbinary people.' In defending the policy, the administration's lawyers said it 'does not violate the equal protection guarantees of the Constitution,' the AP reports. However, many judges have ruled that discrimination based on gender identity does violate these guarantees. And in the 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation is sex discrimination and therefore banned by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The high court's ruling, written by Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch, applied only to job discrimination, but it has been used to argue against discrimination in other areas of life. The Trump administration further claimed that the policy would not harm passport holders because they remained free to travel, but many trans, nonbinary, and intersex people worried that having a gender marker that doesn't match their appearance would cause difficulties when traveling.
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Judge skeptical over Trump policy ending non-binary passports: ‘You've got to give me something'
A federal judge on Tuesday appeared skeptical that the Trump administration had solid evidence to support its decision to stop issuing passports with a non-binary 'X' sex marker. 'You've got to give me something, or else I'll assume there's nothing,' Massachusetts federal Judge Julia Kobick reportedly said in court in a hearing for a lawsuit challenging the policy, according to Bloomberg Law. The administration has argued that the president has wide latitude over passport policy. They also say that the challengers can still travel abroad, but that the government 'is not responsible for Plaintiffs' choice to change their sex designation for state documents but not their passport.' The judge appeared skeptical of this too, reportedly telling administration lawyers on Tuesday, 'That's a very sweeping argument.' The American Civil Liberties Union, which helped bring the lawsuit, argued that the reason for the passport policy is 'inexplicable to anything other than animus.' Last month, the group helped a collection of transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people sue the administration over the passport policy, which came after Donald Trump signed an executive order mandating that the government recognize only two immutable sexes, male and female, on government documents. They allege that the inability to update the sex marker on their passports has put them at risk during foreign travel, caused invasive questioning at airports, and prevented one plaintiff from traveling abroad to receive gender-affirming medical care. The suit claims the Trump administration has violated equal protection, travel, privacy, and speech rights, as well as the Administrative Procedure Act. 'This is preventing me from having an accurate identification and the freedom to move about the country as well as internationally,' Ash Lazarus Orr, one of the plaintiffs, told The Associated Press. 'This has really, truly impeded on my life and my freedom as well ... The government is questioning who I am as a trans person.' As The Independent has reported, critics of the administration argue that the passport policy doesn't fall in line with present-day medical understandings of sex and gender. Intersex people, for instance, are born with a combination of anatomical, genetic, or hormonal characteristics that do not fall into the binary categories of male or female. Mainstream medical groups like the American Medical Association recognize gender as a spectrum. 'The sex and gender executive order is ideology,' Carl Charles, a senior attorney at the advocacy group Lambda Legal, previously told The Independent. 'Its ideology is, 'Let's ignore science. Let's ignore the experts. Let's ignore people's lived experiences.''
The Independent
25-03-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Judge skeptical over Trump policy ending non-binary passports: ‘You've got to give me something'
A federal judge on Tuesday appeared skeptical that the Trump administration had solid evidence to support its decision to stop issuing passports with a non-binary 'X' sex marker. 'You've got to give me something, or else I'll assume there's nothing,' Massachusetts federal Judge Julia Kobick reportedly said in court in a hearing for a lawsuit challenging the policy, according to Bloomberg Law. The administration has argued that the president has wide latitude over passport policy. They also say that the challengers can still travel abroad, but that the government 'is not responsible for Plaintiffs' choice to change their sex designation for state documents but not their passport.' The judge appeared skeptical of this too, reportedly telling administration lawyers on Tuesday, 'That's a very sweeping argument.' The American Civil Liberties Union, which helped bring the lawsuit, argued that the reason for the passport policy is 'inexplicable to anything other than animus.' Last month, the group helped a collection of transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people sue the administration over the passport policy, which came after Donald Trump signed an executive order mandating that the government recognize only two immutable sexes, male and female, on government documents. They allege that the inability to update the sex marker on their passports has put them at risk during foreign travel, caused invasive questioning at airports, and prevented one plaintiff from traveling abroad to receive gender-affirming medical care. The suit claims the Trump administration has violated equal protection, travel, privacy, and speech rights, as well as the Administrative Procedure Act. 'This is preventing me from having an accurate identification and the freedom to move about the country as well as internationally,' Ash Lazarus Orr, one of the plaintiffs, told The Associated Press. 'This has really, truly impeded on my life and my freedom as well ... The government is questioning who I am as a trans person.' As The Independent has reported, critics of the administration argue that the passport policy doesn't fall in line with present-day medical understandings of sex and gender. Intersex people, for instance, are born with a combination of anatomical, genetic, or hormonal characteristics that do not fall into the binary categories of male or female. Mainstream medical groups like the American Medical Association recognize gender as a spectrum. 'The sex and gender executive order is ideology,' Carl Charles, a senior attorney at the advocacy group Lambda Legal, previously told The Independent. 'Its ideology is, 'Let's ignore science. Let's ignore the experts. Let's ignore people's lived experiences.''
