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Judge blocks Arizona's surgery mandate for transgender birth certificate changes was first published by Arizona Mirror, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is part of the States Newsroom.
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A federal judge in Tucson has ordered Arizona to begin issuing amended birth certificates to transgender people, regardless of whether they’ve undergone surgery to change their appearance.
Judge James Soto on Sept. 30 permanently struck the word “operation” from an Arizona law that required people to go through a “sex change operation” before they can be issued a new birth certificate that aligns with their gender identity.
He ordered the Arizona Department of Health Services to comply with his order within 120 days.
The National Center for LGBTQ Rights, which brought the suit on behalf of three transgender minors from Arizona, lauded the judge’s decision.
“This ruling is a win for all transgender people born in Arizona,” the center said in a statement.
The three minors and their parents challenged the law in 2020, arguing that the special rules for trans people are discriminatory and violate several constitutional protections, including the rights to privacy and equal protection guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.
The lawsuit was later expanded to a class action case, applying to all transgender people born in the Grand Canyon State.
The minors said that barring access to birth certificates that match their outward appearance unless they underwent transition surgery could force them to “out” themselves as transgender any time they must present identifying documents, putting them at risk of danger and discrimination. It would also force them to have an expensive surgery in order to get accurate identifying documents, even though some trans people don’t wish to go through surgery.
And Arizona law bars minors from undergoing gender-affirming surgeries, preventing transgender youth from accessing identification that aligns with their identity.
While the Department of Health Services defended the law in court, a spokesman for Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, an advocate for LGBTQ rights, previously told the Arizona Mirror that she doesn’t agree with the law, but that the state agency was still obligated to defend it.
In June, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Steve Montenegro, both Republicans, filed a brief in the case arguing that the “proposed injunction fails to conform with legislative intent.”
They asked the court to instead strike down the ability for anyone to change the gender on their birth certificate, which Soto said would exceed the court’s “boundaries in rewriting a state statute.”
“Precedent demands that the Court follow the legislature’s intent based on the statute at hand, not the current legislative intent,” Soto wrote.
And in his interpretation of the law, as well as that of the Arizona Department of Health Services, the legislature intended to give transgender people a way to amend their birth certificates to align with their identities.
“The elimination of this single word gives faculty to transgender adults and minors (and their parents and treating physicians) who are pursuing treatment for gender dysphoria. It places the decision of what constitutes a ‘sex change’ in the appropriate hands: patients and their treating physicians,” Soto wrote.
This change will allow transgender people born in Arizona to obtain an amended birth certificate, as long as they get a recommendation from a doctor. This means a trans person who wants to obtain an amended birth certificate could go through a “social transition” by changing their name, the way they dress and their pronouns, along with possible hormonal treatment, without a requirement of a surgical operation.
“We are thrilled that the Arizona Department of Health Services will be permanently enjoined from enforcing this irrational and overly burdensome requirement, and Plaintiffs will be able to amend their birth certificates to reflect who they are,” Rachel Berg, a National Center for LGBTQ Rights attorney, said in a statement.