Washington: The US Supreme Court on Thursday allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to enforce a policy barring transgender and nonbinary people from choosing passport sex markers that match their gender identity.

The decision, issued on the court’s emergency docket, lets the administration implement the policy while a lawsuit over it continues. It halts a lower-court order that had required the government to allow individuals to select male, female, or X markers on new or renewed passports in accordance with their gender identity.

The court’s three liberal justices dissented.

“Displaying passport holders' sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth,” the conservative-majority court said in a brief, unsigned order. “In both cases, the government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment.”

The dissent warned the policy endangers transgender people. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that such passports expose individuals to “increased violence, harassment, and discrimination,” and said the policy stems directly from Trump’s executive order describing transgender identity as “false” and “corrosive.”

Transgender and nonbinary plaintiffs have reported being sexually assaulted, strip-searched, and accused of presenting fake documents at airport security, the dissent noted.

Jon Davidson, senior counsel for the ACLU’s LGBTQ and HIV Project, called the ruling “a heartbreaking setback for the freedom of all people to be themselves, and fuel on the fire the Trump administration is stoking against transgender people and their constitutional rights.”

The policy derives from a January executive order by Trump declaring the United States recognises only two sexes — male and female — based on birth certificates and “biological classification.” A 2021 change under President Joe Biden had removed documentation requirements and allowed nonbinary people to choose an X marker.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly praised Thursday’s ruling. “This decision is a victory for common sense and President Trump, who was resoundingly elected to eliminate woke gender ideology from our federal government,” she said.

Attorney General Pam Bondi also celebrated the order, saying there are two sexes and the Justice Department would continue to defend that “simple truth.”