Story at a glance
- The Ohio Department of Health is expected to roll out a process for residents to change the sex listed on their birth certificates in early June.
- The agency was sued in 2018 by four transgender plaintiffs.
- Tennessee is now the only state to forbid residents from updating birth certificates to match gender identity.
The Ohio State Department of Health is slated to allow transgender residents to update the sex listed on their birth certificates following a major court decision toward the end of 2020 that found the agency’s prohibition of changing the sex marker on birth certificates as “unconstitutional.”
Four plaintiffs argued that the mismatch between their gender identity and the sex listed on their birth certificates were more likely to be subject to harassment, discrimination and abuse. Thus, they sued officials at the Ohio Department of Health in a bid to be allowed to augment the sex markers assigned at birth.
Each plaintiff recounted personal anecdotes of harassment and discrimination due to the incongruity between their gender identity and the biological sex listed on legal documents.
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The lawsuit argued that Ohio was one of the last states to permit this change and that Ohio’s Birth Clause Policy is a governmental overstep into a person’s bodily autonomy.
“The Birth Certificate Policy violates the First Amendment rights of transgender people to refrain from speaking by forcing them to disclose their transgender status and to identify with a gender that conflicts with who they are,” the suit read. “It also prevents transgender people from accurately expressing their gender.”
With local outlets reporting that the Ohio Department of Health will not appeal the court’s ruling, the department is expected to implement a change process for sex markers on vital records and install it by June 1.
This makes Tennessee the sole state that continues to forbid residents from altering sex markers listed on birth certificates.
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