Ohio to allow transgender people to change birth certificate sex markers Jeremy Beaman © Provided by Washington Examiner
The Ohio Department of Health will establish a procedure by which transgender people born in the state can amend their birth certificates to reflect the gender by which they identify.
The agency is working to comply with a Dec. 16 court ruling that enjoined Ohio from enforcing its birth certificate policy and plans to have another method in place before June 1 allowing people to change the sex marker on their birth certificates, according to an April 22 court filing.
Ohio’s policy preventing transgender people from changing their birth certificates was discriminatory, U.S. District Judge Michael Watson ruled in December, saying that “a blanket prohibition against transgender people changing their sex marker is unconstitutional.”
Ohio to allow transgender people to change birth certificate sex markers
washingtonexaminer.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from washingtonexaminer.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Pro Bono Spotlight By
Michael Phillis | February 7, 2021, 8:02 PM EST The ACLU of Ohio, along with attorneys at Thompson Hine LLP and Lambda Legal, recently successfully challenged Ohio s policy forbidding transgender people from correcting their birth certificates to match their gender identity, convincing a judge that the state s policy was discriminatory.
Driver s licenses and other documents could reflect an individual s real identity, but around 2016, Ohio started refusing to allow people to correct what plaintiffs called the gender marker on their birth certificate, according to Elizabeth Bonham, an attorney with the ACLU of Ohio. Advocates thought there was no legitimate reasoning behind the policy and sued in 2018, challenging a state approach they said made life for transgender people more difficult.
22 Dec 2020
A federal judge ruled last week that Ohio must allow “corrections” on birth certificates issued by the state from one’s biological sex to a chosen gender.
Judge Michael Watson, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled on the case based on a lawsuit filed by three women and one man seeking to pick the gender opposite of their biological sex.
Watson said not allowing people to pick what sex is on their birth certificate is “nothing more than thinly veiled post-hoc rationales to deflect from the discriminatory impact of the policy.”
“This is truly a victory for the LGBT community, in every aspect,” Stacie Ray, one of the four plaintiffs, said.
Court says Ohio must allow changes to birth certificates of transgender people
In his ruling, Judge Michael Watson called the rule discriminatory and said the state’s arguments were “nothing more than thinly veiled post-hoc rationales to deflect from the discriminatory impact of the policy.”
Dec 21, 2020 5:45 AM By: J.D. Davidson
(Photo courtesy of odh.ohio.gov)
A federal court ruled last week that Ohio must allow changes, or what proponents call corrections, to gender markers on birth certificates, leaving Tennessee as the only state in the nation not to allow changes.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio struck down the policy that prevented transgender people born in Ohio from adjusting the gender marker on their birth certificate. The decision comes in a lawsuit filed two years ago on behalf of three Ohio women and one man.
vimarsana © 2020. All Rights Reserved.