Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., wants to restore passports to only designating two genders.
Marshall’s “Passport Sanity Act” would codify an executive order from President Donald Trump requiring passports to have gender designated as male or female.
Americans are currently allowed to apply for passports with gender labeled “X.”
“Passports play a critical role in safeguarding our national security by confirming the true identity of individuals leaving and returning to the U.S., which is why they must reflect factual, biological reality,” Marshall said to The Daily Wire. “Congress should act quickly to enshrine the Passport Sanity Act into law, reinforcing the commonsense approach championed by President Trump and Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio.”
Following Trump’s executive order, Rubio froze all passport applications requesting the “X” gender. Marshall’s order would block all travel documents with the “X” designation, ensuring passports specify holders as male or female.
A federal judge blocked Trump’s executive order, though the administration has appealed. Former President Joe Biden allowed the introduction of gender-neutral passports upon taking office in 2021.
“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,” Justice Department lawyers wrote in its appeal.
U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick in Boston issued a preliminary injunction in April that stopped the enforcement of the policy against six of the seven transgender and nonbinary people who sued to challenge the policy.
She later expanded the scope of her ruling to halt the policy’s enforcement against all similarly situated transgender, nonbinary and intersex passport holders.
Kobick, an appointee of Biden, found that the State Department policy was arbitrary and rooted in an irrational prejudice toward transgender Americans that violated their equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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