Montana Governor Greg Gianforte signed a bill into law on Friday that will prevent the vast majority of transgender people from correcting the gender listed on their birth certificates. The new policy will bar individuals who have not yet undergone gender-affirming surgery from changing the gender marker listed on their birth certificate.
Senate Bill 280, which was introduced in February, requires that individuals get a court order “indicating that the sex of the person born in Montana has been changed by surgical procedure” before they are allowed to update their birth records. Authored by State Senator Carl Glimm (R-2nd District), the legislation claims that “accurate vital statistics play an important role in society” and suggests that allowing trans people to be affirmed in their lived gender undermines public health.
“I think birth certificates are an item of fact,” Glimm said on the Senate floor in March, according to the Montana Free Press. “When a person is born, you record where they’re born, you record their weight, you record their sex. And that’s important information to document.”
The law repeals a prior rule implemented by the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services in December 2017. The old guidelines permitted people to “correct their gender by providing a copy of a photo ID reflecting their name and gender identity, a signed statement attesting to their gender identity, or a court order indicating that they had undergone a gender transition,” according to the LGBTQ+ news publication Metro Weekly.
In the bill text, Glimm claims that rules and regulations regarding how the state recognizes gender “should [be] contemplated in the legislature.” This is despite the fact that the rule falls well within the government agency’s stated bounds.
As critics of the legislation pointed out, SB 280 will have the opposite intended effect, serving to further complicate the lives of transgender people who live in Montana. In comments cited by the Free Press, House Minority Leader Kim Abbott (D-83rd District) predicted the bill will force “trans folks in this state to have incongruous documents,” which could also lead to outing and harassment.
“One vital piece of information doesn’t reflect a person’s true self, doesn’t reflect the way they present in their communities, and actually creates a dangerous situation for a lot of trans folks,” Abbott said.
South Dakota sought to pass a similar bill, House Bill 1076, earlier this year, but it was effectively killed in February.
The enactment of SB 280 is likely to make getting a corrected birth certificate virtually out of reach for the majority of trans people. Not only is applying for an updated gender marker a time-consuming, labor-intensive process, it’s also expensive, especially in the 15 U.S. states with a surgical requirement on the books. The cost of transitioning can exceed $100,000 in some cases, with many patients being forced to pay out of pockets for these procedures.
In a 2015 survey from the National Center for Trans Equality (NCTE), just 25% of respondents had undergone at least one form of gender-affirming surgery. Another 55% said they had sought transition coverage through their insurance provider and were denied.
SB 280 is only the latest of Montana’s numerous attacks on its LGBTQ+ residents in 2021.
Two weeks ago, Gianforte signed a bill backed by the hate group Alliance Defending Freedom — which has introduced anti-trans bills in dozens of states this year — which legalizes discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in the name of religion. The following day, the Montana State Senate voted to advance a bill excluding trans girls from playing on women’s sports teams, and the state also weighed legislation banning trans youth from receiving gender-affirming surgery.
While the anti-trans medical care ban was killed, the sports bill was recently sent to the governor’s desk after passing the Montana State Legislature.
Although President Joe Biden has pledged his commitment to LGBTQ+ equality and recently addressed the struggles of trans youth in a speech, the White House has yet to commit to fighting against these discriminatory laws. A Tuesday report, however, revealed that the White House is currently considering future legal actions.
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