"As for the Government’s suggestion that the President is harmed by not being able to impose a uniform definition of sex across various regulatory schemes..."

"... that assertion is just another species of the far-fetched contention that the President must be injured whenever he is prevented from doing as he wishes.... The Government also fails to explain why it needs a uniform definition of sex, much less why such a uniform definition needs to be imposed now such that it cannot await the outcome of this litigation...."

Writes Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — joined by Justices Kagan and Sotomayor — dissenting in Trump v. Orr, which granted a stay of a district court’s preliminary injunction against a new Executive Branch policy that required all new passports to show the individual's "biological sex" (AKA "sex assigned at birth").

Jackson continues: "[E]ach of the plaintiffs credibly testified that they would experience significant anxiety and fear for their safety if required to use passports that reflect their sex assigned at birth rather than their gender identity. Absent an injunction, the plaintiffs and the classes of transgender Americans they represent are forced to make a difficult choice that no other Americans face: use gender-incongruent passports and risk harassment and bodily invasions, on the one hand, or avoid all activities (travel, opening a bank account, renting a car, starting a new job) that may require a passport, on the other. The harm to these individuals from having to make that choice—before their legal challenges have even been resolved—is palpable. The documented real-world harms to these plaintiffs obviously outweigh the Government’s unexplained (and inexplicable) interest in immediate implementation of the Passport Policy.... In my view, the Court’s failure to acknowledge the basic norms of equity jurisdiction... is an abdication of the Court’s duty to ensure that equitable standards apply equally to all litigants...."