(WatchDogReport.org) – Tennessee’s policy of banning people from altering the gender designation on their birth certificates has been upheld by a federal appeals court. The court ruled 2-1 on July 12 that the ban respects constitutional rights.
It also concluded that the state’s interest in maintaining consistent and accurate records is genuine. Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote on behalf of the majority that there is no such thing as a fundamental right to change the sex on a birth certificate to match gender identity.
Lambda Legal filed the original lawsuit on behalf of three transgender individuals from Tennessee in 2019. The suit claimed that denying the state’s transgender people the right to an “accurate” birth certificate that matches their gender identity violated equality rights laid out in the US Constitution. It also claimed that forcing transgender people to continue to identify with a gender they no longer relate to violates their First Amendment rights to free speech.
Lambda Legal launched the appeal in October 2023 after the District Court for the state’s Middle District ruled against the plaintiffs in June 2023. The appeal accused the court of leaving transgender people to struggle with “inconsistent” identity documents. The appeal also claimed the state was forcing transgender people to declare their transgender status due to it not matching the sex on their birth certificate.
In April, Republican House lawmakers passed a bill that would bring the state’s laws on gender closer to those of several other Republican-led states, where schools are required to inform parents if their children identify as transgender. Following the verdict, the bill went back to the Senate, which had already passed an earlier version of it, before it could be signed off by Republican Governor Bill Lee.
Florida also declared its opposition to President Joe Biden’s measures to empower transgender people in April. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis vowed that the state would “not comply” with newly imposed Title IX rules, which he argued took agency away from parents. The amendments to Title IX, which will grant transgender students greater protections under civil rights laws, are due to enter effect in August.
The federal appeals court concluded when it dismissed the appeal in Tennessee that the state’s policy did not discriminate. The court added that the plaintiffs had not demonstrated how the state’s policy, which has been in place for over five decades, was created to discriminate against transgender people.
Copyright 2024, WatchDogReport.org
