After a lengthy legal battle, two transgender Utah residents have won the right to correct their birth certificates. The historic ruling has profound implications for the state’s trans community, which has been burdened by an unclear, haphazard process that made it oftentimes difficult to have identity documents that matched their lived gender.
The case concerned Sean Childers-Gray and Angie Rice, who petitioned to have the gender markers on their birth records updated more than 5 years ago. In 2016, Rice and Childers-Gray lobbied the Second Judicial District Court in Ogden, Utah for both a name and gender marker correction, but Judge Noel Hyde only granted their requests to update their names. At the time, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that he was the first judge to ever block a trans applicant from changing their birth documents.
In his ruling, Hyde wrote in his order that “some biological facts are not subject to voluntary modification.” He added that he “lacked authority” to allow a gender marker change under the state’s laws, saying that the legal system “lacks clarity and outlines no set of standards or rules” on the subject. He suggested that the issue would need to be sorted out by a higher authority.
Childers-Gray and Rice appealed to the Utah Supreme Court for that guidance in 2018, and following a 3 year wait, the court finally ruled in their favor in a 4-1 decision on Thursday. Writing for the majority, Judge Deno Himonas said trans people have a “common-law right” to have a birth certificate that matches their sense of self.
The ruling took direct aim at Hyde, saying that his opinion was a “legal mistake” based upon “hypotheticals” and “slippery-slope arguments.”
“The adjudication of sex-change petitions lies squarely within the power granted to Utah courts by the Utah Constitution,” Himonas wrote. “Our district courts have the authority to adjudicate such petitions without any constitutional impediment.”
Although trans people will still need a court order to correct their birth certificates, the ruling will fix a longstanding issue referred to as “judge roulette” by local advocates. According to NBC News, there was no statewide standard for gender marker corrections and discretion was left up to the whims of individual judges.
The case will now be sent back to the lower courts to follow through on the plaintiff’s requests, and they celebrated the watershed moment outside the courtroom following Thursday’s ruling. Childers-Gray told local media that the decision “means the world,” while Rice added that the debate is about more than just legal paperwork. It’s about the right of trans people to be seen for who they are, she said.
“You aren’t just talking about a birth certificate,” Rice told the local Fox affiliate KSTU. “You aren’t talking about just a driver’s license or a passport. You’re talking about someone’s soul.”
LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations joined the plaintiffs in celebrating the case’s outcome. Candice Metzler, executive director of the community group Transgender Education Advocates (TEA) of Utah, proclaimed that the state has “taken a step closer to that ideal of ‘becoming a more perfect Union.’”
“We have chosen to create a system that actually serves all who use it. We have chosen the health of our community by sending a clear message that transgender, intersex, and gender-diverse people have a place in our communities and state,” Metzler said in a press release cited by the CBS affiliate KUTV. “This decision will go a long way in helping such people know they belong.”
Troy Williams, executive director of Equality Utah, added that the ruling is only the most recent win for trans rights in the state. Earlier this year, the Health and Human Services Committee in the Utah Senate killed a bill banning trans girls from playing women’s sports in school after its governor, Spencer Cox, forcefully condemned it.
“It has been an unprecedented year for transgender Americans,” Williams sand in a statement. “Over 30 states introduced legislation to restrict the freedom of transgender youth. But here in Utah, we chart a different path. The Utah Legislature rejected two anti-transgender bills, and today, the Utah Supreme Court has upheld transgender rights to live freely as their authentic selves. This is ‘equality under the law’ in practice, right here in Utah.”
Utah remains one of the country’s most conservative states, with Republicans controlling supermajorities in both houses of the legislature, but it has boasted notable progress on LGBTQ+ issues in recent years. In 2015, it became the first GOP-led state to pass an inclusive, statewide nondiscrimination law and enacted regulatory changes effectively banning conversion therapy last year.
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