By Howard Fischer | Capitol Media Services
Arizona can’t refuse to amend the sex on someone’s birth certificate just because the person seeking the change has not submitted to transgender surgery, a federal judge has ruled.
In an extensive decision, U.S. District Court Judge James Soto, an appointee of the former President Barack Obama, rejected arguments by the state Department of Health Services that allowing such changes would undermine the reason the state issues such documents: to provide a vital record of births, including the sex of the newborn. He said the state would still have the original record, though it would be sealed from outside scrutiny.
And Soto dismissed the claim that the records would have less meaning. He pointed out the health department already changes birth certificates when someone produces documentation from a physician of sex-change surgery.
