MONTANA RULE BARS BIRTH CERTIFICATE CHANGES, EVEN WITH GENDER SURGERY
Health department emergency order follows court ruling
Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte’s administration says transgender people cannot change their birth certificates even if they undergo gender-confirmation surgery, in defiance of a court order that temporarily blocked the Republican state’s bid to restrict transgender rights.
The state health department said in an emergency rule that it would no longer record the category of “gender” on people’s birth certificates, replacing that category with a listing for “sex” — either male or female — that can be changed only in rare circumstances.
Sex is “immutable,” according to the rule, while gender is a “social construct” that can change over time.
“Sex is different from gender and an immutable genetic fact, which is not changeable, even by surgery,” said the rule from Public Health and Human Services director Adam Meier, a Gianforte appointee.
Only Tennessee, Oklahoma and West Virginia have similar sweeping prohibitions against changes to birth certificates, according to the civil rights group Lambda Legal. Bans in Idaho and Ohio were struck down in 2020, according to the group.
Other states also have recently sought to restrict transgender rights, including Indiana where lawmakers on Tuesday overrode their governor’s veto and banned transgender females from competing in girls’ school sports.
The Gianforte administration’s rule was issued just over a month after a state judge temporarily blocked enforcement of a new Montana law that requires transgender people to have undergone a “surgical procedure” before being allowed to change their gender on their birth certificates.
Judge Michael Moses ruled the law was unconstitutionally vague because it did not specify what procedure must be performed. The law also required transgender people to obtain a court order indicating they had a surgical procedure.
Moses’ order forced the state to revert back to a process adopted in 2017 that said transgender residents could apply to change the gender on their Montana birth certificate by filing sworn affidavits with the health department.
But state health officials said the April 21 ruling put them in “an ambiguous and uncertain situation” and led them to craft the temporary emergency rule.
The changes exceed restrictions on transgender rights imposed by the Republican-dominated state Legislature and signed into law by Gianforte.
Half of the U.S. states, plus the District of Columbia, allow transgender residents to change gender designation on their birth certificates without surgical requirements or court orders, according to the policy organization Movement Advancement Project that supports transgender rights.