This case concerns an Executive Branch policy requiring all new passports to display an individual’s biological sex at birth. The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts preliminarily enjoined the Government from enforcing the policy, and the First Circuit declined to stay the injunction pending appeal. The Government then filed this stay application. Applying our familiar stay factors at this preliminary stage, we grant the application.

Displaying passport holders’ sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth—in both cases, the Government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment. And on this record, respondents have failed to establish that the Government’s choice to display biological sex “lack[s] any purpose other than a bare . . . desire to harm a politically unpopular group.” Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U. S. 667, 705 (2018) (internal quotation marks omitted). Nor are respondents likely to prevail in arguing that the State Department acted arbitrarily and capriciously by declining to depart from Presidential rules that Congress expressly required it to follow. See 22 U. S. C. §211a.

For these reasons, the Government is likely to succeed on the merits. And the District Court’s grant of class-wide relief enjoins enforcement of an Executive Branch policy with foreign affairs implications concerning a Government document. In light of the foregoing, the Government will “suffer[ ] a form of irreparable injury” absent a stay. Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U. S. 831, 861 (2025) (internal quotation marks omitted).

The application for stay presented to Justice Jackson and by her referred to the Court is granted. The June 17, 2025 order of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, case No. 1:25–cv–10313, is stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such a writ is timely sought. Should certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event certiorari is granted, the stay shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of this Court.