June 17 (UPI) -- A federal judge in Massachusetts on Tuesday expanded an order against the State Department's passport policy to include all applicants who are transgender or nonbinary, saying the "passport policy violates their constitutional right to equal protection of the laws."
Judge Julia Kobick granted a first preliminary injunction in April, which blocked the State Department's policy for only six of seven people who originally sued. On Tuesday, the judge expanded it to plaintiffs who were added to the suit, and nearly all trans and nonbinary Americans seeking new passports or changes.
Kobick, an appointee of former President Biden, wrote that the six named plaintiffs and the new class of plaintiffs "face the same injury: they cannot obtain a passport with a sex designation that aligns with their gender identity."
"The plaintiffs have demonstrated that they are likely to succeed on the merits of their claims that the Passport Policy violates their constitutional right to equal protection of the laws and runs afoul of the safeguards of the APA," Kobick wrote in Tuesday's opinion, while referring to the Administrative Procedure Act which governs how policies are adopted.
After taking office earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order, proclaiming the United States recognizes only two sexes -- male and female -- and that those sexes "are not changeable." Trump then ordered government-issued identification documents, including U.S. passports, to reflect a person's sex at birth.
