Seven people have filed a federal lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump's executive order declaring that the U.S. government would only recognize a person's sex assigned at birth on government-issued documents.

       The complaint, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, accuses the State Department of rejecting some applications from transgender citizens or issuing documents with their sex assigned at birth. The lawsuit also accused the department of holding some passports and other documents submitted by transgender and nonbinary people.

       "I've lived virtually my entire adult life as a man. Everyone in my personal and professional life knows me as a man, and any stranger on the street who encountered me would view me as a man," said Massachusetts resident and plaintiff Reid Solomon-Lane in a statement provided by the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit.

       "I thought that 18 years after transitioning, I would be able to live my life in safety and ease," Solomon-Lane added. "Now, as a married father of three, Trump's executive order and the ensuing passport policy have threatened that life of safety and ease. If my passport were to reflect a sex designation that is inconsistent with who I am, I would be forcibly outed every time I used my passport for travel or identification, causing potential risk to my safety and my family's safety."

       The American Civil Liberties Union logo seen displayed on a smartphone.

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       MORE: Trump's definition of 'male,' 'female' criticized by medical and legal experts

       The lawsuit lists seven plaintiffs. In a news release, the ACLU said more than 1,500 transgender people or their family members have contacted the organization concerned about not being able to get passports that reflect their identity

       ABC News has reached out to the State Department for comment on the lawsuit.

       Trump's executive order, signed his first day in office, legally declared that there are only "two sexes, male and female" and defined a "female" as "a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell." The order defined "male" as "a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell."

       The executive order stated: "Invalidating the true and biological category of 'woman' improperly transforms laws and policies designed to protect sex-based opportunities into laws and policies that undermine them, replacing longstanding, cherished legal rights and values with an identity-based, inchoate social concept."

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       The move was criticized by some medical and legal advocates, who argued the executive order rejected the reality of sexual and gender diversity.

       In 2021, the State Department relaxed its rules, allowing applicants to self-identify as either "M" or "F" without needing medical certification or additional documentation to do so. Shortly after, the agency began issuing "X" gender markers for intersex or nonbinary residents.

       In states across the country, some residents are allowed to self-select or change the gender or sex on their birth certificates and driver's licenses.