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Kansas to allow trans residents to change birth certificates
Source: Associated Press
Kansas to allow trans residents to change birth certificates
June 24, 2019
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas will allow transgender people to change their birth certificates so the documents reflect their gender identities under a legal settlement that Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s young administration and LGBTQ-rights advocates announced Monday.
The agreement ends a federal lawsuit filed in October by four transgender individuals and the Kansas Statewide Transgender Education Project against officials at the state Department for Health and Environment, which issues birth certificates. U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree issued an order Friday to make the agreement binding.
The agreement reverses a policy imposed under conservative Republican Gov. Sam Brownback that gave Kansas among the toughest rules in the nation for changing a gender on a birth certificate. Lambda Legal, a national LGBTQ-rights group that represented the individuals and group suing Kansas, said only Ohio and Tennessee have similar policies in place and that they’re being challenged in court too.
The Kansas lawsuit argued that the state’s policy violated the right of transgender people to due legal process and equal protection under the law. It also said refusing to allow changes conveyed “an ideological message” and forced transgender people to identify with the sex “incorrectly assigned to them” at birth, violating their free speech rights.
-snip-
June 24, 2019
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas will allow transgender people to change their birth certificates so the documents reflect their gender identities under a legal settlement that Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s young administration and LGBTQ-rights advocates announced Monday.
The agreement ends a federal lawsuit filed in October by four transgender individuals and the Kansas Statewide Transgender Education Project against officials at the state Department for Health and Environment, which issues birth certificates. U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree issued an order Friday to make the agreement binding.
The agreement reverses a policy imposed under conservative Republican Gov. Sam Brownback that gave Kansas among the toughest rules in the nation for changing a gender on a birth certificate. Lambda Legal, a national LGBTQ-rights group that represented the individuals and group suing Kansas, said only Ohio and Tennessee have similar policies in place and that they’re being challenged in court too.
The Kansas lawsuit argued that the state’s policy violated the right of transgender people to due legal process and equal protection under the law. It also said refusing to allow changes conveyed “an ideological message” and forced transgender people to identify with the sex “incorrectly assigned to them” at birth, violating their free speech rights.
-snip-
Read more: https://apnews.com/7409799fb2a144bca2fd90cd46b7ea6c