Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued a decision allowing the Trump administration to enforce a policy requiring passports to display an individual’s biological sex at birth. The case, Orr v. Trump, centers on whether the U.S. Department of State and Department of Homeland Security can refuse to allow people to obtain a passport that reflects their gender identity. It arose after the Trump administration issued an executive order attacking the existence of transgender people across the federal government.
Todd A. Cox, Associate Director-Counsel at the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), issued the following statement in response:
“A policy so clearly grounded in the punishment, endangerment, and humiliation of transgender people is fundamentally at war with the principles of equal protection. This decision is yet another troubling example of the court misusing the emergency docket, but even more so because of the blatant abandonment of the safety and protection of countless individuals.
“Despite the court’s decision, LDF remains committed to ensuring the guarantee of equal protection in the Fourteenth Amendment is fully and faithfully extended to everyone. We call on our partners and other allies to do the same, standing in solidarity with transgender and nonbinary people all across the country.”
To learn more about LDF’s work to combat the Trump administration’s attacks on transgender people through executive order, visit here.
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Founded in 1940, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) is the nation’s first civil rights law organization. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the Legal Defense Fund or LDF. Please note that LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957—although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights.
