Sarah Toce
On Sept. 9, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland ordered the U.S. Department of State to process the passport applications of six transgender U.S. citizens with accurate sex markers, reflecting their gender identity, blocking enforcement of the Trump administration’s discriminatory passport policy.
The preliminary injunction provides emergency relief to six plaintiffs in Lambda Legal’s federal lawsuit, who had received inaccurate sex markers on their passports despite having previously held passports with correct designations or requesting only routine updates to their legal names. The court dismissed a seventh plaintiff because he had not yet been denied an accurate passport.
“This is a crucial victory for our clients and transgender people nationwide who have been trapped by this administration’s cruel and discriminatory policy,” said Lambda Legal Counsel Carl Charles. “The court recognized that forcing inaccurate identity documents on transgender Americans causes immediate and irreparable harm. Our clients can now travel with dignity and safety while we continue fighting to overturn this discriminatory policy entirely.”
The court’s decision comes after Lambda Legal demonstrated that the six plaintiffs faced immediate and ongoing harm from the State Department’s arbitrary enforcement of a policy that requires passport sex markers to reflect what the agency unilaterally determines to be an individual’s “biological sex,” regardless of other identity documents or previous passport designations.
The preliminary injunction provides critical relief to the six plaintiffs, including Zander Schlacter, a transgender man and New York-based textile artist and designer, and two transgender women, Jill Tran of Maryland and Lia Hepler-Mackey of California, both recent college graduates. The pseudonymous plaintiffs afforded relief include one nonbinary person, Kris Koe, a full-time university student and part-time tutor and grocery clerk living in Connecticut, and two transgender men, Peter Poe, a Maryland-based college student, and David Doe, a Pennsylvania lawyer. The court dismissed Robert Roe, a U.S. Foreign Service Officer living in Europe, from the case based on the fact that he had not yet been denied an accurate passport.
Ongoing Legal Challenge
Lambda Legal filed the federal lawsuit on April 25, 2025, challenging the discriminatory passport policy that resulted from executive orders issued in the first 100 days of the Trump administration. While the preliminary injunction provides emergency relief for the seven plaintiffs, Lambda Legal will continue pursuing the lawsuit to permanently overturn the policy.
“This preliminary injunction is an important first step, but our work is far from over,” Charles said. “We will continue fighting until this discriminatory policy is struck down permanently.”
Read the court’s ruling here.
