Trans Watch
@transwatch.bsky.social
22 followers 65 following 14 posts
Keeping score on the Whitehouse's efforts to politically delegitimize the trans community
Keeping score on the Whitehouse's efforts to politically delegitimize the trans community
![I. PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
This Motion seeks to prevent irreparable injury inflicted by the federal government’s
abrupt, discriminatory, and dangerous change in policy denying usable passports to transgender,
nonbinary, and intersex people. For years, the government issued passports to Americans
reflecting a sex designation aligning with their gender identity, including an X sex designation
upon request. That policy not only provided accurate passports, it prevented harms such as people
being outed as transgender or nonbinary against their will every time they used their passport—
including to domestic authorities and hostile foreign authorities. Defendants abruptly instituted a
new policy implementing an Executive Order issued on the first day of the Trump Administration,
“Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the
Federal Government” (the “EO”). The State Department is already enforcing the EO’s edict by
issuing passports listing only either female or male sex designations, determined by whether a
person “belong[ed], at conception” or at birth “to the sex that produces” either “the large” or “the
small reproductive cell.” EO 14168, 90 Fed. Reg. 8615, 8615 (Jan. 20, 2025).
1
Defendants’ new
policy seeks to deny the existence of transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people. And it is causing
grave, immediate harm.
Plaintiffs are entitled to a stay of agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act
(“APA”) and a preliminary injunction.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:36eqtmzysqf7wsslczw4uxcd/bafkreiaz4zh4mc5p74abudckcogbjt4olowkqq3vliif6zqhydqlyw2epm)
![Dear Mr. Harris:
This case concerns the constitutionality of Tennessee Senate Bill 1 (SB1), which prohibits healthcare providers from "[p)rescribing, administering, or dispensing any puberty blocker or hor-mone" if that treatment is provided "for the purpose" of "[e]nabling a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor's sex" or "[t)reating purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor's sex and asserted identity.
" Tenn. Code Ann.
§§ 68-33-102(5)(B), 68-33-103(a)(1). Last year, the United States filed briefs contending that SB 1 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The United States advanced the same position at oral argument. Following the change in Administration, the Department of Justice has reconsidered the United States' position in this case. The purpose of this letter is to notify the Court that the government's previously stated views no longer represent the United States' position.
This case began as a suit by private plaintiffs challenging the constitutionality of SB1.
After the private plaintiffs filed suit, the United States intervened under 42 U.S.C. 2000h-2 and filed its own complaint challenging the constitutionality of SB1. Section 2000h-2 authorizes intervention ey the nited Sises in an ittie oing creer licen the thial o asuas protectionl
public importance." 42 U.S.C. 2000h-2. The Department has now determined that SB1 does not deny equal protection on account of sex or any other characteristic. Accordingly, the new Administration would not have intervened to challenge SB1—let alone sought this Court's review of the court of appeals' decision reversing the preliminary injunction against SB1.
Nevertheless, the United States believes that the confluence of several factors counsels against seeking to dismiss its case in this Court. The Court's prompt resolution of the question presented will bear on many cases pending in the lower courts. Since granting cert…](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:36eqtmzysqf7wsslczw4uxcd/bafkreihdxnmfgta3cjqgxapj4eqoj3glzj7noucx3w5fcoovmvyj7nv3fi)
