Montana judge blocks rule that prevented transgender people from changing sex on docs
HELENA, Mont. — A state judge in Montana temporarily blocked this policy prevented transgender people of changing the gender designation on their birth certificates and driver’s licenses.
District Judge Mike Menahan issued his order Monday, blocking the rule while the case moved through the courts.
Menahan said it was not necessary at this point in the lawsuit to determine whether transgender Montanans constitute a suspect class based on their transgender status, but he disagreed with the state’s argument that discrimination based on transgender status is not discrimination based on sex.
“If the challenged state actions discriminate against transgender individuals on the basis of their transgender status, they necessarily also discriminate on the basis of sex,” he wrote.
The case was filed in April by two transgender women on behalf of themselves and others who failed to obtain documents “that accurately reflect their gender,” according to the complaint.
One state rule prevents transgender people born in Montana from changing the gender designation on their birth certificate. Another policy prevents transgender people from changing the gender on their driver’s license without an amended birth certificate — which they cannot obtain if they were born in Montana.
Plaintiff Jessica Kalarchik, a Montana native, said she was frustrated because even though Montana can “openly live my life as the woman I know I am,” Montana “wants me to have a birth certificate that falsely lists my gender . male.”
Birth certificates and driver’s licenses are needed to apply for a marriage license or a passport, to vote or even to purchase a hunting license, Alex Rate, legal counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana, argued last month. Every time a transgender person is required to present a document that does not accurately reflect his or her gender, he or she is forced to declare themselves as transgender.
The state had argued that sex is binary, both male and female, and that being transgender is not a protected class of people whose constitutional rights to privacy could be violated.
“The right to privacy does not include the right to substitute an objective fact of biological sex on a government document,” Assistant Attorney General Alwyn Lansing argued for the state.
The hearing was the latest salvo in a series of laws, regulations and legal challenges over Montana Republicans’ efforts to restrict the rights of transgender residents. The state has used various justifications in banning changes to identifying documents, including requiring accurate statistical data or saying that a person’s biological sex cannot be changed even though a person’s gender identity can.
“The state cannot articulate a legitimate interest in restricting access to accurate identity documents, let alone a compelling interest,” Rate said during the hearing.