BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Montana health officials say transgender people can’t change their birth certificates even if they undergo gender-confirmation surgery, in defiance of a court order that had blocked the Republican-controlled state’s bid to restrict transgender rights.
The state health department said late Monday in an emergency order that it would no longer record the category of “gender” on people’s birth certificates, replacing that category with a listing for “sex” that can be changed only in rare circumstances.
Sex is “immutable,” the order said, while gender is a “social…construct” that can change over time.
The order came a month after a state judge temporarily blocked enforcement of a law that required transgender people to have undergone a “surgical procedure” before being allowed to change their gender on their birth certificates.
Judge Michael Moses ruled the law was unconstitutionally vague because it did not specify what procedure must be performed. The law also required transgender people to obtain a court order indicating they had had a surgical procedure.
Moses’ order forced the state to revert back to a process adopted in 2017 that said transgender residents could apply to change the gender on their Montana birth certificate by filing sworn affidavits with the health department.
But state health officials said the April 21 ruling put them in “an ambiguous and uncertain situation” and led them to craft the temporary emergency order.
The new order exceeds the restrictions on transgender rights imposed by the Republican-dominated state Legislature.
