US judge questions Trump's passport policy targeting transgender people

[Lori Dee]

US judge questions Trump's passport policy targeting transgender people
Link to Full Article
Reuters - Nate Raymond
March 25, 20255:06 PM MDT

A federal judge pushed President Donald Trump's administration on Tuesday to justify why it could lawfully refuse to issue passports to transgender and nonbinary Americans that reflect their gender identities.

U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick during a hearing in Boston appeared open to arguments by lawyers for seven transgender and nonbinary people that the policy the Department of State adopted at the Republican president's direction was discriminatory.

Kobick, ... did not immediately rule on whether the policy should be blocked. But she sharply questioned a lawyer with the U.S. Department of Justice about why the policy was justified.

"There is clearly a burden on their ability to use their passports," the judge said.

"They're being denied a passport consistent with their gender identity because of their sex," ...

Benjamin Takemoto, a Justice Department lawyer, told Kobick that Trump had "broad discretion to determine rules for issuing passports," allowing him to scrap Biden's policy in order to standardize government-issued identity documents.

But Kobick called that argument "sweeping," as she questioned [the] improper animus directed at a politically disfavored population, given the "slew of government actions against transgender and nonbinary people."

"It seems to deny that gender identity is something worth recognizing," she said.

------------------------------