Federal Court Blocks Trump Order on X Passport Markers

June 19, 2025

First, I am incredibly honored to be recognized by The Red Tent Collective today for its weekly series, Thankful Thursdays. Thank you Red Tent Collective (and thanks again for helping me get the Democratic Women’s Declaration launched last fall).

Second, I’ve been pouring through a fascinating piece from earlier today in the New York Times, titled, “How the Transgender Rights Movement Bet on the Supreme Court and Lost: The Inside Story of the Case that Could Set the Movement Back a Generation.” It’s about Wednesday’s decision in US v. Skrmetti.

It notes, among other things, that:

Since taking office, [Trump] has sought to strip trans people of the right to choose the sex marker on their passports and bar them from the military, arguing that they inherently lack the integrity and moral fitness to serve — that their very identity is a dishonorable lie. He has threatened to withhold federal funding from health care providers that continue to offer blockers, cross-sex hormones or transition surgery to minors. “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” one executive order asserted. “These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”

In this post, I’ll focus on that passport matter, because a federal court has recently blocked Trump’s order on passports from taking effect. I’ll dive into that matter.

The piece in the New York Times reveals a lot about fights within the “trans” movement, and a great deal of disenchantment with ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio, who had argued against a Tennessee ban on puberty blockers and opposite-sex hormones for minors in the case. I did not know until earlier today, but was not surprised to learn, that Chase was arguing back in 2016 that there is “no such thing as a male body.”

As mentioned, a federal court has recently blocked a Trump order prohibiting people from putting “X” as their sex marker on their passports. This post is about that. Read on to learn more.

Paid-only content follows. A paid subscription gets you regular access to much more content and the ability to comment and engage in conversation with other thoughtful people.