Ohio Sued For Refusing to Allow Transgender People to 'Correct' Their Birth Certificates
The state of Ohio is being sued on behalf of a few transgender persons who are demanding that they be able to change their birth certificates to reflect their "gender identity." The state's unwillingness to do so violates their constitutional rights, the plaintiffs argue.
In a lawsuit filed last week by Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union, the four transgender individuals — three men and one woman — claim that the state's refusal to allow them to have new birth certificates coerces them into endorsing the "government's position as to their own gender, as well as on the meaning of gender generally, through the birth certificate they must show to others." The government's position is therefore an infringement on their free speech rights guaranteed by the first Amendment, the lawsuit maintains.
Lambda and the ACLU also argued that Ohio's refusal amounts to an "ideological message" that gender is only based on the outward appearance of genitalia at birth and is something that never changes.
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Writing at the Federalist Monday, Margot Cleveland, an attorney who teaches at the college of business at Notre Dame, observed that the latest suit again reveals the ACLU's gradual, ongoing push to "seek to enshrine in the U.S. Constitution an alternative reality."
Throughout the complaint, the plaintiffs insist that the sex on their birth certificates be "corrected."
"However, there is nothing to correct. The plaintiffs may identify with the opposite sex, but that does not make them the opposite sex, notwithstanding the ACLU's 'factual' allegations that the male plaintiffs are women and the female plaintiff is a man," Cleveland argued.
The attack on biology and the subsequent imposing of a "self-determination" standard when it comes to sex is the ultimate goal, she said, noting this is not the first time the ACLU has put forward similar challenges.
In February, the group sued the state of Alabama for discrimination, contending that the state's policy restricting access to driver's licenses that "accurately reflect" gender identity for transgender people places them "at increased risk for violence and harassment."
"There is an ideology at issue — gender ideology — and it is well past time for rational Americans to join together to proclaim the truth: The emperor has no clothes — and a man is a man," Cleveland concluded.
The Christian Post reported in December that elsewhere around the country, similar efforts are taking place and are bringing together ideologically diverse people who object to the notion that gender indentity should eclipse biological sex given its implications
In Washington state, both conservative and liberal women's rights activists voiced their complaints about a proposed state health department rule allowing individuals to choose "X" as a gender option, instead of just "M" and "F."
Yet unlike the ACLU's and Lambda's recent lawsuit approach in Ohio and Alabama regarding gender identity, the northwestern state made the move through the bureaucracy. The third gender "X" option was summarily adopted in early January after a brief public comment time in December.
"X" was defined as "not exclusively male or female, including, but not limited to, intersex, agender, amalgagender, androgynous, bigender, demigender, female-to-male, genderfluid, genderqueer, male-to-female, neutrois, nonbinary, pangender, third sex, transgender, transsexual, Two Spirit, and unspecified."
LGBT rights activist Sarah Kate Ellis praised the change, arguing at the time that it is "vital that states catch up and acknowledge the reality of the non-binary community."
Similar gender identity policies are also taking effect in California and Oregon this year.
