WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump wants the Supreme Court to back his policy of refusing to issue passports to transgender and nonbinary Americans that reflect their gender identities.

In an emergency request filed Sept. 19, the Justice Department said the court should pause a lower court’s ruling blocking the policy while it’s being challenged in court.

“Private citizens cannot force the government to use inaccurate sex designations on identification documents that fail to reflect the person’s biological sex −especially not on identification documents that are government property and an exercise of the President’s constitutional and statutory power to communicate with foreign governments,” Solicitor General John Sauer wrote in the request.

The State Department allowed people to update the sex designation on their passports for more than three decades. Starting in 2022, they could choose an “X” marker.

On Trump's first day back in office, he issued an executive order requiring the federal government to only “recognize two sexes, male and female,” declaring “these sexes are not changeable.”

The president required the State Department to issue passports that “accurately reflect the holder’s sex” based on that definition.

In April, a federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement for some of the people suing as the litigation continues.

U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick in Boston, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, said the policy is “based on irrational prejudice toward transgender Americans.”

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals backed that decision.

The Justice Department argues the lower courts are interfering with the president’s “foreign-policy prerogatives” and is making the United States “speak to foreign governments in contravention of both the President’s foreign policy and scientific reality."

Jon Davidson, an ACLU lawyer representing those challenging the policy, said the administration “has taken escalating steps to limit transgender people’s health care, speech, and other rights under the Constitution.”

“We are committed to defending those rights,” he said, “including the freedom to travel safely and the freedom of everyone to be themselves without wrongful government discrimination.”

Contributing: Reuters

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump wants Supreme Court to get involved in passports for transgender people

Reporting by Maureen Groppe, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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