Anticipating a passport change, Ash Lazarus Orr, a West Virginia advocate for transgender people, sent in an expedited application to change the gender marker on his passport from “F” to “M” days before Trump took office.
Additional orders could open the door to kicking transgender service members out of the military, barring the use of federal taxpayer money to provide gender-affirming care to transgender people under 19 and keeping transgender girls and women out of girls and women's sports competitions.
The passport policy is among several actions Trump has taken since returning to office that could stifle rights and legal recognition of transgender, intersex and nonbinary people.
The department also stopped allowing people to change the gender listed on their passport or get new ones that reflect their gender rather than their sex assigned at birth.
The lawsuit filed Friday by ACLU lawyers challenging the passport change contends that the order discriminates against people based on their sex or transgender status, depriving them of their rights to equal protection, privacy and speech.
