The Supreme Court of the United States ruled 6-3 on Thursday that the Trump administration can require transgender people to display their biological birth sex on passports.
The ruling overturns two lower court rulings.
The 13-page ruling said that the government would suffer a form of irreparable injury absent a stay.
Beginning in 2021, the Biden administration's State Department allowed applicants to self-select the sex marker that matched their gender identity of X, not their biological sex.
Massachusetts preliminarily enjoined the Government from enforcing the policy. Then, the First Circuit declined to stay the injunction pending appeal.
The Trump administration filed a stay application, which the nation’s highest court granted.
"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," the order said. "And on this record, respondents have failed to establish that the Government’s choice to display biological sex “lack[s] any purpose other than a bare . . . desire to harm a politically unpopular group.”
Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
"The Government also insists that gender identity is not a meaningful basis for identification—strangely begging the question why sex markers are required on passports at all," Jackson wrote.
"The documented real-world harms to these plaintiffs obviously outweigh the Government’s unexplained (and inexplicable) interest in immediate implementation of the Passport Policy."
The Supreme Court told President Trump he can move forward with a policy requiring U.S. passports to record a person's biological sex and doing away with gender-neutral markers, saying Thursday that he was acting under his foreign policy powers. https://t.co/m0yRWif3c4
— The Washington Times (@WashTimes) November 6, 2025
JUST IN: SCOTUS overturns activist judge and rules that the Trump administration can force those who identify as transgender or non-binary to choose only their biological sex on their passports. pic.twitter.com/GU0828634q
— Bad Hombre (@joma_gc) November 6, 2025
🚨BREAKING: SCOTUS has ruled that "Displaying passport holders' sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth."
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) November 6, 2025
Wokeness is slowly being ERADICATED from our society, and it couldn't happen quick enough!
WINNING!!!! pic.twitter.com/tnLJr1zkEw
🚨New: The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled I'm favor of the Trump administration 6-3 to enforce a new passport rule that will require all U.S. passports to display a citizen's biological s*x at birth rather than their indicated gender identity pic.twitter.com/TfY1OkCtH4
— The Calvin Coolidge Project (@TheCalvinCooli1) November 6, 2025
Supreme Court sides with Trump administration on sex designations on passportshttps://t.co/aTBy8Cp0Jy
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) November 6, 2025
The ruling is a win for the Trump administration, which is trying to repeal many "woke" federal rules.