The Daily Fuckup

By February 17, 2025, the Trump administration’s new passport sex-marker policy was already being challenged in federal court. The lawsuit was filed on February 7 in Massachusetts by transgender and nonbinary plaintiffs, who argued that the policy forces passports to reflect sex assigned at birth instead of gender identity and blocks the X marker that had been available under the previous system.

The policy traces back to Trump’s January 20 executive order directing federal agencies to align government records with the administration’s definition of sex. The State Department then revised its passport guidance to say it would no longer issue passports or consular birth reports with an X marker and would issue passports only with male or female markers that match a customer’s sex at birth. The same guidance warned applicants that requests for a different marker could trigger delays.

The plaintiffs say that change has immediate practical consequences because passports are used as core identity documents for travel and other official checks. The complaint says the new rule has already left some applicants with passports that do not match who they are, or with applications stalled under the new policy. That is the dispute now in front of the court: whether the government can turn a long-standing identity document into a vehicle for enforcing a fixed sex designation.

The legal fight also gives the administration an early test on how far its January order can reach into everyday paperwork. The government says the new policy reflects its view of sex-based records. The plaintiffs say it is arbitrary, discriminatory, and unlawful. Those arguments are now headed into a case that began on February 7 and was still moving as of this edition date, February 17.