4 sue for birth certificate changes

Four transgender people who say Ohio won’t allow them to change the gender listings of their birth certificates to properly reflect their identities sued the state on Thursday.

TheAmerican Civil Liberties Union, representing the plaintiffs, said the state’s requirement prevents them from obtaining documents essential to everyday living and subjects transgender people to discrimination and potential violence.

“Ohio’s categorical bar stands in sharp contrast to the approach of nearly all other states and the District of Columbia, which have established processes by which transgender people can correct the gender marker on their birth certificate,” the lawsuit says.

The action, which lists the plaintiffs as three females and one male, claims the birth certificate rule im- posed by the Ohio Department ofHealth and the state Office of Vital Statistics is inconsistent with the state’s practice of permitting transgender people to correct gendermarkers on their driver’s licenses and state identification cards.

“A birth certificate purports to tell the world about who we are,” said Susan Becker, general counsel for the ACLU of Ohio. “Ohio’s birth certificate policy, however, refuses to provide transgender individuals — and only transgender individuals — with a birth certificate that accurately conveys their gender identity.”

Becker said the lawsuit, filed by the ACLU, the ACLU of Ohio and Lambda Legal in the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, could take a year or two in court proceedings.

The state attorney general’s office said it was reviewing the lawsuit, which asks the court to declare the birth certification policy unconstitutional and to prohibit the state from refusing to allow transgender people to make adjustments. The state Department ofHealth declined to comment.

The plaintiffs are Stacie Ray, Jane Doe and Ashley Breda, women whose birth certificates indicate their sex asmale, and BasilArgento, a man whose birth certificate indicates his sex as female.

Ray insisted “I am a woman” and called the lack of an accurate birth certificate “humiliating.”

Ray said a co-worker threatened her with violence when a human resources employee loudly questioned the gender listing on her birth certificate. Lacking a birth certificate that matches her gender identity also caused delays in her obtaining a hazardous-materials endorsement needed for her promotion as a truck driver.

Argento said trouble with his birth certificate has caused delays in him gaining Italian citizenship and in being able to get married.