Supreme Court Ruling Likely to Undo Transgender Passport and Other Rights

WASHINGTON - June 19, 2025 - PRLog -- A federal judge just blocked an effort by the Trump administration to eliminate a right transgenders had won to list "X" - rather than "M" or "F" - as their sex on passports, but it's likely that he will be forced to change his decision in light of the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling upholding a Tennessee ban on transgender medical treatments for adolescents, predicts public interest law professor John Banzhaf.

The high court's several opinions in the Tennessee case could have important implications involving many issues affecting transgenders - including not just passports, but also the use of public restrooms, and of M2F athletes competing as females - says Banzhaf, who supported rights for transgender students, and has won over 100 cases of sex discrimination against both males and females.. . .

Thus, although only three justices so far have expressly said that there is no need for heightened scrutiny when a law differentiates on the basis of gender identity, many constitutional law experts believe that the remainder of the conservative majority would agree.

If so, and laws affecting transgenders must be upheld by judges if they might be supported by any possible rational basis, it is increasingly likely that laws requiring transgenders to use restrooms which correspond to their biology rather than to their professed gender identity, and prohibiting M2F transsexual athletes from competing as females, will be upheld, says Banzhaf, although he says that compromises regarding both are possible, and might be preferable to outright bans.

For example, he has suggested that states should be required to make no more than a "reasonable accommodation" to the desires of transgenders regarding restrooms; something easily done is most cases (e.g. in schools, public venues, etc.) by simply having a reasonable number of single-user restrooms, similar to those on airplanes, which can be used by all genders.

Similarly, by simply renaming athletic competitions and teams now called "men" to "open" so that all genders could compete - something which simply recognizes what already occurs in many sports where girls can already play on a boys' teams - M2F transgender athletes could compete in that category without compromising (or even having to disclose) their gender identity, argues Banzhaf.

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