Transgender rights in the United States vary considerably by jurisdiction. In recent decades, there was an expansion of federal, state, and local laws and rulings to protect transgender Americans.
Most states allow change of sex on birth certificates and driver's licenses, although some require proof of gender-affirming surgery or prohibit updating these fields altogether. Some states legally recognize non-binary citizens, and offer an "X" marker on identification documents. Gender self-identification (including an "X" option) was permitted for passports between 2022 and 2025, but was subsequently repealed. Laws concerning name changes in U.S. jurisdictions are also a complex mix of federal and state rules. The Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges established that equal protection requires all jurisdictions to recognize same-sex marriages, giving transgender people the right to marry regardless of whether their partners are legally considered to be same-sex or opposite-sex. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, of 2009, added crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability to the federal definition of a hate crime. However, only some states and territories include gender identity in their hate crime laws.
Since at least 2022, there has been a national movement by conservative and right-wing politicians and organizations against transgender rights. Many red state governments have restricted or eliminated transgender residents' access to gendered public accommodations, gender-related medical care, and identification documents that reflect their gender identity. Bans or restrictions on drag performances as well as those on queer-related literature and academic curricula (e.g. gender and sexuality studies) in public schools have also been instituted by several state governments.
Since Donald Trump's reelection in 2025, he has signed executive orders to prohibit federal recognition of genders beyond male or female assigned at birth, gender-related medical care for people under 19, military service by openly trans people, support of social transition and instruction on gender-related topics in schools, and the inclusion of trans women in women's sports. Two judges had temporarily blocked the under-19 gender-affirming care ban, but, on June 18, 2025, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Skrmetti that bans on gender-affirming care for minors were constitutional. Other aspects of these orders have faced legal challenges.
Family law
Marriage In Obergefell v. Hodges, the Court ruled that people have a right to marry without regard to sex. Prior to this ruling, the right of transgender people to marry was often subject to legal challenge—as was the status of their marriages after transitioning, particularly in cases where an individual's birth sex was interpreted to mean a same-sex marriage had taken place.
Cases In 1959, Christine Jorgensen was denied a marriage license by a clerk in New York City, on the basis that her birth certificate listed her as male;(April 4, 1959). Bars Marriage Permit; Clerk Rejects Proof of Sex of Christine Jorgensen . The New York Times Jorgensen did not pursue the matter in court. Later that year, Charlotte McLeod, who had undergone gender-affirming surgery in Denmark, married her husband Ralph H. Heidel in Miami. She did not mention her birth sex or legal gender to the state, since Florida's marriage law did not require a birth certificate for the issuance of a marriage license to an individual over the age of 21. In 1976, the New Jersey case M.T. v. J.T. held that trans people who had undergone gender-affirming surgery could marry as the legal sex matching their gender identity, the first ruling of its kind.
In Littleton v. Prange (1999), Christie Lee Littleton, a trans woman who had undergone gender-affirming surgery, argued to the Texas 4th Court of Appeals that she was entitled to her deceased husband's estate. The court decided that her marriage certificate was invalid on the basis that her sex should be considered equal to her chromosomes, which were XY (male). As a result, she could not claim her husband's estate. The court subsequently also invalidated her revision to her birth certificate. She appealed to the Supreme Court but it denied certiorari in 2000.
The Kansas Appellate Court ruling in In re Estate of Gardiner (2001) considered and rejected Littleton, preferring M.T. v. J.T. instead. In this case, the Kansas Appellate Court concluded that "[A] trial court must consider and decide whether an individual was male or female at the time the individual's marriage license was issued and the individual was married, not simply what the individual's chromosomes were or were not at the moment of birth. The court may use chromosome makeup as one factor, but not the exclusive factor, in arriving at a decision. Aside from chromosomes, we adopt the criteria set forth by Professor Greenberg. On remand, the trial court is directed to consider factors in addition to chromosome makeup, including: gonadal sex, internal morphologic sex, external morphologic sex, hormonal sex, phenotypic sex, assigned sex and gender of rearing, and sexual identity." In 2002, the Kansas Supreme Court reversed the Appellate court decision in part, following Littleton.
The custody case of Michael Kantaras made national news. Kantaras filed for divorce from Linda Forsythe in 1998, requesting primary custody of their children. Though he won that case in 2002, it was reversed on appeal in 2004 by the Florida Second District Court of Appeal,Kantaras v. Kantaras, 884 So. 2d 155 (Fla. Ct. App. 2004) which upheld Forsythe's claim that the marriage was invalid because Kantaras, a trans man, should be considered a woman and same-sex marriages were illegal in Florida.Michael J Kantaras v Linda Kantaras Case No. 98-5375CA. 511998DR005375xxxWS, 6th Circuit Review was denied by the Florida Supreme Court.Kantaras v. Kantaras, 898 So. 2d 80 (Fla. 2005)
In re Jose Mauricio LOVO-Lara (2005), the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled that for purposes of an immigration visa, a marriage between a "postoperative transsexual" and a person of the opposite sex is considered legitimate provided the state in which the marriage occurred considers it to be a legitimate heterosexual marriage."
In Fields v. Smith (2011), three transgender women in the Wisconsin prison system filed a lawsuit against Wisconsin for passing a law banning hormone treatment or gender-affirming surgery for inmates. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin ruled in favor of the inmates. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed and held that the Wisconsin law violated the Eighth Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Wisconsin's appeal.
Custody Courts are generally allowed to base custody or visitation rulings only on factors that directly affect the best interests of the child. According to this principle, if a transgender parent's gender identity cannot be shown to hurt the child, contact should not be limited, and other custody and visitation orders should not be changed for this reason. Many courts have upheld this principle and have treated transgender custody cases like any other child custody determination—by focusing on standard factors such as parental skills. In Mayfield v. Mayfield, for instance, the court upheld a transgender parent's shared parenting plan because there was no evidence in the record that the parent would not be a "fit, loving and capable parent".
Other times, courts claiming to consider a child's interests have ruled against the transgender parent, leading to the parent losing access to their children on the basis of their gender identity. For example, in 1982 in Ohio, in Cisek v. Cisek, the court terminated a transgender parent's visitation rights. The court asked whether the parent's gender transition was "simply an indulgence of some fantasy". It held that there was a risk of both mental and "social harm" to the children, who might be emotionally confused upon seeing "their father as a woman".
Reproductive rights Many U.S. jurisdictions require gender-affirming surgery before the person's legal gender can be changed. Ann Torkvist, writing for Salon, criticized this as forced sterilization. Some trans people wish to retain their ability to procreate. Others do not require surgical intervention to treat their gender dysphoria. In these cases, surgery is medically unnecessary and transgender activists have therefore contended that requiring such treatment before a person's gender transition can be recognised is unethical.
Some transgender people use assisted reproduction technology services and preservation of reproductive tissue prior to having surgery that would render them infertile. Depending on what type of gametes the person's body naturally produces, this would include cryopreservation of semen in a sperm bank or preservation of oocytes or ovum. For such individuals, access to surrogacy and in vitro fertilization services is necessary to have children. Some people advocate specifically for transgender people to have a legal right to these services.
Identity documents Lack of access to identity documents that show their current gender and name can create difficulty for transgender people whose appearance does not match the name, photo and gender on the ID. As of 2024, most states and the federal government no longer require transgender people to have undergone gender-affirming surgery in order to permit name and gender marker changes on driver's licenses, passports and other IDs. However, in 2025 the Trump administration issued an executive order requiring new passports to only be issued with a person's assigned sex at birth.
Having documents which do not match a person's gender presentation has been reported to lead to harassment and discrimination, and can also make it difficult to vote (see the section on Disenfranchisement below).
Federal identification documents
Passports The State Department determines what identifying biographical information is placed on passports. They currently do not allow gender markers that do not match the gender assigned at birth. Passports issued prior to January 2025 remain valid, regardless of whether the gender marker matches.
On June 30, 2021, the government announced that the State Department would begin offering an "X" gender marker and would also allow changing one's gender marker without proving any physical changes to one's sex. Previously, the policy had been amended on June 10, 2010 to allow permanent gender marker changes only if accompanied by a physician's statement that "the applicant has had appropriate clinical treatment for gender transition to the new gender." Before 2010, the required statement was more specific; it was required to be from a surgeon who said that gender reassignment surgery had been completed.
From April 11, 2022, any individual who is a valid US passport holder could legally have F, M or X options listed as a sex/gender marker available and recognized by way of self determination. Starting in late 2023, X was also available for passport cards, emergency passports made by consulates and embassies, consular reports of birth abroad.