Montana has legally erased trans people by banning birth certificate changes in the latest attack against the community.
The western US state ignored a court order that blocked the GOP-controlled legislature from restricting even further the rights of trans people.
The Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services said in an emergency order Monday (23 May) that birth certificates will now solely list “sex” and no longer record a person’s “gender”.
Even if a trans Montanan has undergone gender-affirming surgery, they will legally be unable to change the sex marker on their birth certificate. This is, the order says, because sex is “immutable” while gender is a “social concept”.
“Sex is different from gender and is an immutable genetic fact, which is not changeable, even by surgery,” the order by department director Adam Meier says.
“Accordingly, this emergency rule does not authorize the amendment of the sex-identified/cited on a birth certificate based on gender transition, gender identity or change of gender.”
The only instance in which a sex marker can be changed on a birth certificate is if it was incorrectly listed when issued or if a person’s sex was “misidentified” at birth, Meier adds. The order went into effect immediately.
Montana ‘makes it even harder for trans people to live’ with birth certificate ban
The directive means that trans Montanans may struggle to access certain services, such as social security, or apply for other identification documents, such as passports or driver’s licenses, because of their inaccurate birth certificates.
The agency’s move goes in the face of a Billings district court judge who in April blocked Senate Bill 280, a 2021 law requiring a “surgical procedure” and a court order to change the sex listed on a birth certificate.
It was swiftly signed into law by Republican governor Greg Gianforte. He has previously signed laws banning trans athletes and allowing religion to be used to “attack” LGBTQ+ people.
Two trans Montanans sued the state in response last year, arguing the bill violated their state constitutional rights to privacy and equal protection. Not all trans folk undergo surgery either, they added.
Judge Michael Moses ruled that the bill does interfere with a person’s right to privacy by making trans people disclose private details.
Montana Republican governor Greg Gianforte signed the anti-trans bill in 2021. (William Campbell-Corbis via Getty Images)
“Only transgender individuals are subjected to these procedures and burdens in order to have a birth certificate that accurately reflects their gender,” he wrote in his decision.
But Moses’ order left the department without a “regulatory mechanism” to process birth certificate changes, the order claimed. A 2017 policy that allowed trans applicants to update their birth certificates without surgery or through the courts had been binned because of the bill.
Emergency orders can only be issued when a situation poses “an existing imminent peril to the public health, safety, or welfare that cannot be averted or remedied by any other administrative act”, the Montana Administrative Procedure Act says.
Democratic lawmakers, health experts and LGBTQ+ campaigners, unconvinced that the order was at all needed, condemned the department.
“While this rule is intended to make the lives of our transgender neighbors harder, it impacts all of us by eroding the rights that let us live our lives free from government overreach,” House minority leader Kim Abbott and Senate minority leader Jill Cohenour said in a Tuesday statement.
“As someone who cares for transgender patients, I don’t understand why our state government is spending so much time, energy and money trying to prevent them from having accurate documentation,” Lauren Wilson, vice president of the Montana Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, told the Montana Press.
“This rule is unfairly singling them out and making it even harder for them to live a public life in Montana.”
ACLU of Montana decried the health department for so openly rebelling against the court.
“The State is willfully refusing to comply, and in doing so is showing their true colours – these laws and regulations are about harming transgender Montanans,” a Tuesday statement said.
This is a new video updating the one I posted earlier about arming teachers. As he says the very teachers you don’t trust with rainbow stickers and to teach the history of racism while you claim they are grooming your kids with LGBTQ+ something … You are now demanding they have guns to handle what armed police can’t. Please watch to see him again shatter the right-wing talking point, again. Hugs
This is from three years ago. He describes all the reasons arming teachers is not going to work. He details all the reasons that it is set up for failure. The video is a great answer to the Republicans that want more guns in schools. Hugs
There’s not enough “gun laws” on earth to turn a young man from a predator to a protector. But there is a King, whose name is Jesus, that can step into the heart of a man and change him from the inside out. Unfortunately, we don’t want this King.
Our nation glorifies everything that stands against King Jesus and His Kingdom fruit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. As a result, we’re losing our young men and have lost the soul of our nation.
The radical Left says it’s all about the guns – but it’s the heart that holds the gun! A gun in the hand of a good man brings peace and protection, but a gun in the hand of a bad man brings pain and destruction. Our nation has a heart problem – not a gun problem.
Exalt Jesus once again. Teach our young men to deny themselves, become men of God, and fight against evil instead of perpetrate it. Our boys need to be called up to something much higher than video games, binge shows, and porn! There’s so much more…in Christ.
Let’s do our part as we grieve with the families in TX today. Let’s look at our own kids, our sphere of influence, our churches and schools…and let’s call these young men to lay down their lives, bow to Jesus, and pick up His cross and follow Him. Until then, this path of destruction will never stop.
Longtime JMG readers will recall that the Benham brothers were once regulars here, starting in 2014 when they lost their planned HGTV show after activists informed the network about their history of anti-Muslim and anti-LGBTQ activism, which included annual attempts to force the cancellation of Charlotte Pride.
The pair last appeared here in 2017 when they declared that God murders people with hurricanes in order to force America to repent for “satanic” same-sex marriage (and homosexuality in general).
Their father is notorious anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ activist Flip Benham, who has been convicted multiple times for stalking and threats.
When his sons lost their HGTV show, he declared that the network’s acronym stands for “Homosexual Garbage Television” and that gays are the “most violent community” in the nation and that they want all Christians dead.
In today’s America, everyone carrying guns everywhere is seen as a hallmark of our exceptional liberty. But it wasn’t always like this, even for conservatives. Author and law professor Adam Winkler joins Mehdi to discuss how we fight this hardline, far-right gun culture that’s left generations of schoolchildren in America traumatized and unsafe.
“It’s a horrific situation, but yes, they always jump to gun control. But 50 years ago, we had much more lax gun laws than we have now. We had actually more guns per family than we do now per household. And so what changed? Why all of a sudden, Sean, in the past couple decades have we seen a rise in this? And you have to ask yourself that, that’s what any rational person would do.
“And you look across the board at things like the fact that, you know, we have the dissolution of the family in so many respects. We have fatherless children on the rise in America. We have the loss of religion in so many aspects of our country, where it was a foundation of our country at one time. You can’t discount the rise of social media and the role that that has played in things like this.” – Lara Trump.
things to blame for mass shootings, according to Fox News contributor Lara Trump: – "the dissolution of the family" – the rise of "fatherless children" – "the loss of religion" – social media
This is why many people reject organized religion. No one in the Trump family is remotely religious – and they are as far away from Xtian values as you can get. Babies in cages? Stealing from charities! Hello! But here they are, wrapping themselves in their religious cloaks to tell the rest of use how to live. Abominable hypocrites! So slappable! 😡
More simply, if these assholes honestly believed that our society is chock full of evil, atheistic, violent, game-addicted psychos, why do they also insist that these psychos must be able to legally carry assault weapons?
As usual, taking their nonsense at face value actually makes their argument look even dumber.
So many lies. Families and households are not statistically interchangeable; we’ve always had more guns per family than per household and we always will. The guns we have available have changed over 50 years. Out of wedlock births have been dropping for the last 30 years; fatherless children are not “on the rise”. And religion was nowhere a foundation of this country.
And gun control was not more lax 50 years ago. In fact, after the JFK, RFK, and MLK assassinations it increased. Reagan signed a new gun control law in California for fear of the Black Panther movement.
After last year’s Texas Lege session, I’m not sure you can characterize Texas, the location of the latest mass shooting, as having ANY gun control.
It looks like the gun fetishers have realized that their usual mantras (like Jesus will save us) aren’t working and have moved on to blatantly lying about recent history as well as implementing more than a dash of whataboutism.
Tacticly, she made a grave mistake in using a 50 year time frame as quite a few of us from that era are still alive, coherent, and not rabid rightwingers. OK Boomer this one assholes!
Lack of Jesus? Seriously? In a mostly Hispanic area, a lack of Jesus? The very definition of your deity says He just sat back and let this happen to innocent children, you stupid cunt.
Two weeks ago Republicans were screaming, “WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE INNOCENT CHILDREN” when the Supreme Court protected blastocysts. This week, after 19 children were slaughtered, they’re screaming, “WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE INNOCENT GUNS!”
Scottie's Playtime 