Montana bars birth certificate changes, even with surgery

Source: Associated Press

Montana bars birth certificate changes, even with surgery

MATTHEW BROWN
May 24, 2022

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Montana health officials say transgender people can’t change their birth certificates even if they undergo gender-confirmation surgery, in defiance of a court order that had blocked the Republican-controlled state’s bid to restrict transgender rights.

The state health department said late Monday in an emergency order that it would no longer record the category of “gender” on people’s birth certificates, replacing that category with a listing for “sex” that can be changed only in rare circumstances.

Sex is “immutable,” according to the order, 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 order from Adam Meier, direct of Public Health and Human Services.

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.

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/health-montana-billings-government-and-politics-a20fb6bba32958b282cca0429ebe4fdc