In a significant win for the Trump Administration, the United States Supreme Court issued an opinion on Thursday afternoon on the Trump Administration’s requirement that passport holders use their sex assigned at birth and that such requirements do not violate equal protection guarantees. While a brief, unsigned opinion issued on the interim docket, it represents a major ruling on the constitutional protections afforded to transgender individuals.
The case began with a challenge to an executive order issued on January 20, 2025, declaring that the federal government would only “recognize two sexes, male and female.” The order instructed the State Department to “require that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards, accurately reflect the holder’s sex.”
The litigants alleged that the order and underlying policy were a denial of equal protection.
I previously discussed the Supreme Court’s upholding a Tennessee ban on transgender medical treatments for adolescents. One of the most notable aspects of this decision was the concurrence of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, rejecting the claim that transgender status qualifies as a group entitled to heightened scrutiny under the Constitution.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that “The Equal Protection Clause does not resolve these disagreements.” However, the Court stressed that “This Court has not previously held that transgender individuals are a suspect or quasisuspect class. And this case, in any event, does not raise that question because SB1 does not classify on the basis of transgender status.”
In her concurrence, Justice Amy Coney Barrett directly rejected the claim:
The Sixth Circuit held that transgender individuals do not constitute a suspect class, and it was right to do so.3 To begin, transgender status is not marked by the same sort of “‘obvious, immutable, or distinguishing characteristics’” as race or sex.
…Nor is the transgender population a “discrete group,” as our cases require.
…The boundaries of the group, in other words, are not defined by an easily ascertainable characteristic that is fixed and consistent across the group. Finally, holding that transgender people constitute a suspect class would require courts to oversee all manner of policy choices normally committed to legislative discretion.
…The conclusion that transgender individuals do not share the “obvious, immutable, or distinguishing characteristics” of “a discrete group” is enough to demonstrate that transgender status does not define a suspect class.
…The Equal Protection Clause does not demand heightened judicial scrutiny of laws that classify based on transgender status. Rational-basis review applies, which means that courts must give legislatures flexibility to make policy in this area.
While that was a concurrence with only Justice Thomas, I wrote at the time that the concurrence “likely speaks to the view of three or four other members on the Court.”
It now appears that it clearly did represent the majority’s view.
In this opinion, the Court rejects the rulings of U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick, a Biden appointee in Massachusetts, and the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on the injunction of the policy. Both courts would have forced the Trump Administration to issue passports to transgender and nonbinary Americans that reflect the sex designation of their choosing.
However, the Court ruled that “Displaying passport holders’ sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth—in both cases, the Government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment.”
In rejecting the equal protection claim, the Court added that there is no evidence that a policy requiring a passport to display the holder’s biological sex can only be the result of “a bare . . . desire to harm a politically unpopular group.” It further found that the challengers are unlikely to prevail under the Administrative Procedure Act as “arbitrary and capricious.”
The Trump administration is thus “likely to succeed on the merits” of its defense against the challengers’ claims, the court wrote. And because Kobick’s order “enjoins enforcement of an Executive Branch policy with foreign affairs implications concerning a Government document,” the court said, the government “will ‘suffer[] a form of irreparable injury’” if the order is not paused.
That produced another fiery dissent from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in her dissent, which Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined. Jackson slammed her colleagues:
“The Court … fails to spill any ink considering the plaintiffs, opting instead to intervene in the Government’s favor without equitable justification, and in a manner that permits harm to be inflicted on the most vulnerable party.”
Jackson dismissed the opinion as a type of “back-of-the-napkin assessment” in a cursory opinion. She objected that, not only had the Administration not shown any irreparable harm absent emergency relief, but the challengers “have shown they will suffer concrete injuries if the Government’s Passport Policy is immediately enforced.” She concluded by claiming that “the Court’s failure to acknowledge the basic norms of equity jurisdiction is more than merely regrettable. It is an abdication of the Court’s duty to ensure that equitable standards apply equally to all litigants—to transgender people and the Government alike.”
The opinion substantially reinforced Barrett’s earlier position. While the government had the advantage of a case in an area where considerable deference is given to executive decision-making, the underlying equal protection holding is a major setback for advocates seeking to establish transgender status as protected in the same way as race or religion.
A passport’s purpose is to identify someone. Identifying their gender is crucial.
The legal document used is a birth cert. Altering a birth cert is fraud. The documents are forensic evidence. An added chip with DNA map is your choice. Present it at will. Leave copies with family should you disappear, die or other. Forged legal documents are always policing concerns. Passports, birth certs are forensics. They aren’t party invites.
^^^ Everyone understands that and didn’t expect SCOTUS to recommend fraud. Right?
^^^^ gender reveal parties ..
Using ‘sex’ as a classification category is based on the objective reality of which set of reproductive organs a person is born with. Classification by the woke category of ‘gender’ is based only on subjective ‘feeling’ or ‘preference’. The pronouns in the English language are ‘he’, ‘she’, and ‘it’; wokesters, seeking to avoid being ‘judgmental’ have taken to referring to a single individual not as ‘he’ or ‘she’, but also seeking to avoid using the impersonal ‘it’, have instead chosen to use plural pronouns (they, them, themself) so as to sidestep the fundamental non-reality of the whole gambit. Imagine the problems for law enforcement if a witness to a crime said: ‘I can’t say if the suspect is black or white because that would be racist; I don’t know what the suspect’s feelings about sexual identity were so I can’t jump to any conclusions. And I also note that the plural pronouns for persons are ‘they’, ‘them’, ‘themselves’ = and do not include the truncated woke’ism of ‘themself’.
Not quite at all. For the purposes of the government’s identification, the sex (M or F) is vital; an individual’s personal and subjective ‘gender’ bit is “crucial” not to the government but only to the person involved, which is not the government’s concern or responsibility. And I again note that if a witness to a crime refuses to say whether the criminal was black or white (that would be ‘racist’) or whether the criminal was male or female (that would be ‘judgmental’) then even more criminals are going to stay scot-free than are currently still stalking the innocent public like wolves stalking a buffalo herd.
*. Mainly this is about men born without gonads. This is a Swyers Syndrome and very rare. No testes ever developed and the appearance at birth is female. At puberty the development doesn’t occur. Today DNA tests are done and XY is found. The child was raised as female so estrogen can be given and breasts may grow. They’re usually very tall and thin. I think actress Tilda Swinton is Swyers Syndrome.
Testosterone isn’t given because the upbringing has been female. Genetic mapping isn’t routinely done on newborns unless their is other physical malformation evident. The Swyers women were once thought of as infertile women before DNA was known. From the reading Swyers may have a vaginal opening. I’m not a physician. There is never a removal of male genitalia in Swyers as there are none.
XX females are not born with male genitalia requiring removal. XX may also be absent gonads at birth known as ovaries. They also do not develop at puberty and are infertile.
Any person can wear a costume when taking a passport photo. Passport photos are mutable. Passports do not require DNA maps. Fingerprints are the immutable identifier. Physicians use visual identifiers at birth and record M, F on birth certificates. Birth certificates are required to obtain a US passport. The document itself is the identifier and not subject to change nor developmental syndromes.
One can make an argument that a Swyers person can change or amend the certificate at puberty as XY is male. Swyers females do not because they’ve lived as females. An amended birth cert to XY can be done as an absolute identifier for forensic purposes. The amended document would be attached to the original.
The document itself is the identifier having no discrinatory intent. If airport persons harass an individual report it to authorities. Matching the photo should be sufficient noting costumes can be worn to hide actual identity or to commit fraud.
DNA is not part of nor used or taken except for purposes of the criminal justice system or in medicine. One can be a medical female as in Swyers. This is not done for psychological reasons nor do Swyers females undergo surgeries.
Birth certs are merely documents of identification. Hats and glasses may not be worn in passport photos. Faces have fingerprints to by measurement. Keep them up-to-date.
Censored. Fags
*. Birth certs, passports etc are forensic. Any alteration is fraud.
Court opinion is correct.
Requiring DNA at birth or for passport forensics is currently unlawful because it may be invasive and include family records. Fingerprints and face recognition are singular belonging to one individual. If it is an individuals want to include DNA for forensic purposes attach a chip.
This is law enforcement, people. I’m not laughing.
6 Justices with common sense and 3 raving Lunatics….What is really a shame is this issue had to go to SCOTUS!
“The Government seeks to enforce a questionably legal new policy immediately…” is what the objectors say. What they failed to acknowledge is the fact that throughout the history of the United States, until 1992, passports only recognized M or F. So this policy simply reverts back to the historical and scientifically accurate description of the person applying. This identity thing is simply fiction. If I were to identify as a US Supreme Court Justice, would I be allowed to sit and render options on cases before me? The objectors should, in the name of equity, allow me to do just that.
Identity is acting. I can act as if I were a Supreme Court Justice, but being one and being allowed to actually to sit and rule on cases ain’t going to happen.
Spare us the science fiction antics, please.
throughout the history of the United States, until 1992, passports only recognized M or F.
That isn’t true. It was only the case for about 20 years.
Ironically, ATF Form 4473 has been modified to allow firearm purchasers to declare themselves as “Gender Non-Binary” should they choose to do so. Quite foolish, considering the recent surge in mass murders committed by transgender psychopaths. Checking GN-B really should now be classified as a disqualifier IMHO….
What is wrong with these people?
_____________________________
Stacie Laughton, a man who was elected to the New Hampshire legislature as a woman multiple times and resigned multiple times, now is facing a potentially lengthy prison sentence after pleading guilty to the sexual exploitation of children.
Laughton, 41, a Democrat, had been arrested and charged in 2023 in a case where authorities alleged his “former intimate partner,” a daycare worker named Lindsay Groves, “admitted” taking sexually explicit photographs of children at the center where she worked and sending them to Laughton.
Thank you papa trump, you are so kind and benevelont, to criminal A holes.
President Donald Trump has approved another controversial pardon for a former New York Police Department (NYPD) officer that his own administration sentenced just months ago.
The New York Times reported Friday that 57 year-old former NYPD officer Michael McMahon has been pardoned after serving roughly a third of his 18-month prison sentence. McMahon was found guilty in 2023 of acting as an unregistered foreign agent for the Chinese government (formally the People’s Republic of China, or PRC), along with interstate stalking and conspiracy to commit the same. His co-defendants Zhu Yong and Conying Zheng were sentenced in January to 24 months and 16 months, respectively.
^ Waaa waaa waaa ^
Hunter Biden, Joe Biden
So it’s bad if Biden does it, good if trump does it. OK
You’re pathetic life is so miserable. You’re worried about this sort of crap. Smh
biden pardon a murder if I remember right.
PS… Also the auto pen did it!
As usual. When Ano posts this type of news, but never slows a link. Most of us just pass this comment by.
if you are against the power of presidents to pardon (with a pen in his hand), say so. otherwise…what the hell are you saying???
Typical lef, context goes right over their hate-full heads…
On topic: This is all just a humiliation psy-op on terrorists to get them to dress in drag.
JT – Where are you with the trump administration violating the 1st amendment rights of Federal workers?
“The Trump-Vance administration’s use of official government resources to spread partisan messaging using employees’ email was an unprecedented violation of the First Amendment, and the court’s ruling makes clear that even this administration is not above the law,”
^ Poor baby liberal crybaby waa waa waa ^
Sending a message is not a violation of the first amendment ever.
Next, the laws against partisan politics in the executive do not apply to the White House.
If your story was true – you have nothing.
Thanks for showing us how dumb you are. The administration was sending messages from employees that the employees did not agree with, this violating their 1st amendment rights.
I know this is hard for you to understand. Echoing the dear leader and only the dear leader is not a requirement. Federal Employees have 1st amendment rights.
Thank you for admitting you only approve of speech you like. Idiots.
so, the low IQ, DEI-assisted token justice has spoken – via an opinion entirely written by her white aides. do you really think she came up with that clever wording? She’s incapable. it has nothing to do with “race”. It is extant fact.
“In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”
– Karl Marx
______________
Wait!
That wasn’t a quote from Karl Marx; that was a quote from the Supreme Court of the United States.
Male, female and intersex. There is no transgender. Intersex is a clear birth defect. It’s a category of hermaphrodite, physical phenotype damage. It won’t show in DNA mapping. Absence of gonads. Newborns can look female all their lives. No gonads, not there. Why question it? They fail menses and pregnancy. Long long ago in prehistory they were infertile.
Absent money makers, too.
*. Ok, time out. Just so sick of aberrations. There’s no beauty left nor romance. Yuck… it just is.
Ew, the writhing snakes dancing and bugs bunny ….
Gbye
Now I’m ticked off.
Shabbat shalom everyone 🙂
Have a peaceful sabbath.
Same. I will always support the Jewish people, and Israel’s right to exist.