The Trump-Vance administration has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to allow it to implement a policy that bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers.

President Donald Trump once he took office signed an executive order that outlined the policy. A memo the Washington Blade obtained directed State Department personnel to “suspend any application where the applicant is seeking to change their sex marker from that defined in the executive order pending further guidance.”

The White House only recognizes two genders: male and female.

The American Civil Liberties Union earlier this year filed a lawsuit against the passport directive on behalf of seven trans and nonbinary people.

A federal judge in Boston in April issued a preliminary junction against the passport directive that seven trans and nonbinary people challenged in a lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union filed. A three-judge panel on the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this month ruled against the Trump-Vance administration’s motion to delay the move.

A federal judge in Maryland on Sept. 9 also ruled against the passport policy. (Lambda Legal filed the lawsuit on behalf of seven trans people.)

“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,” wrote Solicitor General D. John Sauer in the Supreme Court petition, according to the New York Times.

Washington Blade courtesy of the National LGBTQ Media Association.