Federal judge slaps down Ohio law that bans transgender people from correcting birth certificates

Transgender Flag
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

A federal judge has just ruled that Ohio’s complete ban on transgender people correcting the gender marker on their birth certificates is unconstitutional.

“At bottom, the court finds that defendants’ proffered justifications are nothing more than thinly veiled post-hoc rationales to deflect from the discriminatory impact of the policy,” Judge Michael Watson wrote in his decision.

Related: This Ohio bill would make it criminal if teachers don’t out trans teens to their parents

Ohio completely bans transgender people from correcting the gender markers on their birth certificates. While the procedure to correct a birth certificate varies from state-to-state, only Ohio and Tennessee have laws that ban transgender people from doing so.

In 2018, four transgender people filed a lawsuit against the state with help from Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Ohio, and the firm Thompson Hine. They said that the state’s ban violates their 14th Amendment right to equal protection under the law.

This week, a judge with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio ruled in their favor, calling the ban “intentional and arbitrary” discrimination.

Judge Watson also said that the state…

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