The Trump administration filed an emergency appeal at the Supreme Court on Friday seeking to reinstate a policy blocking transgender Americans from matching the sex listed on their passports with their gender identity. 

“That policy is eminently lawful. The Constitution does not prohibit the government from defining sex in terms of an individual’s biological classification,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote to the justices. 

On Inauguration Day, President Trump signed an executive order cracking down on what he called “gender ideology.”

The State Department implemented the directive days later, requiring U.S. passports to match a person’s biological sex assigned at birth. The policy also removed the option for individuals to select “X” as the marker, rather than male or female. 

A group of transgender and nonbinary Americans represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued over the policy, claiming it violates federal law and their Fifth Amendment equal protection rights. The Hill has reached out to the ACLU for comment.

U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick, an appointee of former President Biden who serves in Boston, in June effectively blocked the policy nationwide by certifying a class that includes transgender and nonbinary Americans. 

Kobick later said her ruling stood on independent grounds that remain intact in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision upholding Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

The administration’s Supreme Court appeal comes after the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to lift the judge’s block earlier this month.

Sauer called the block an "intolerable intrusion" on Trump's foreign affair prerogatives.

"And because of the injunction’s classwide scope, the government will be forced to contradict both biological reality and its own declared policy on potentially 'tens or hundreds of thousands' of passports," the solicitor general wrote.

This marks the Trump administration’s 27th emergency application at the high court, which has regularly intervened to lift orders blocking aspects of the president’s second-term agenda.

In May, the court allowed Trump to enforce his ban on transgender troops serving openly in the military in a 6-3 split apparently along ideological lines, though the justices don't have to publicly disclose their votes in such appeals.

The new application adds to ones already pending concerning Trump's bids to fire Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook and Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter, as well as the administration’s effort to forgo spending billions in congressionally appropriated foreign aid.