Court rules Ariz . cant block transgender people from changing birth certificates

PHOENIX – State lawmakers can’t block transgender individuals from getting an amended birth certificate unless they first have surgery, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said that Arizona law does say that one method of getting the state to change a person’s gender on the official state document is to have sex-reassignment surgery. But Judge Roopali Desai, writing for the court, rejected arguments by Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Steve Montenegro that is the sole method of getting the sex marker changed on the certificate. She said there’s another statute which also directs the Department of Health Services to make changes when ordered to do so by a court. The judge acknowledged arguments by Rachel Berg, attorney for National Center for LGBTQ Rights, that some judges have refused to consider such cases based on arguments that the health department would refuse to honor the court orders absent evidence of surgery. And it is true that a decade ago the state agency had taken that position. But Desai said the non-surgery option for getting a birth certificate amended is, in fact, the law – and that state court judges must follow it and the health department must honor those orders. Tuesday’s ruling is a crucial victory for several transgender individuals who had sought to change the documents but, for whatever reason, were either not ready for surgery or did not believe it was necessary. The lawsuit, filed in 2020, involves gender dysphoria, a condition where a person’s gender identity does not match the sex assigned at birth – the one of an individual’s birth certificate. Berg, representing two children who sued, argued that one of the treatments is to align the person’s life with his or her gender identity. While that can include hormone-replacement therapy and surgery, she said it also starts with things like changing their names, using different pronouns, adopting clothing and grooming habits associated with their peers of the same gender identity. And part of that process, Berg said, is having a birth certificate that matches. She also said that, for some people, surgery is unnecessary for them to live their lives as the gender with which they identify. But Berg said that, without an amended birth certificate, they effectively would “out’’ themselves as transgender every time they had to present the document. U. S. District Court Judge James Soto sided with Berg. He said the health department has previously been interpreting the law in a way to deny amended birth certificates except in cases where a doctor had attested that the person had undergone surgery.