Idaho to Pay $321,000 Over Trans Birth Certificate Case
metroweekly.comIdaho Capital Sun.In 2017, two transgender women, F.V. and Dani Martin, two transgender women who are native-born Idahoans, sued over the state’s refusal to allow them to change the sex on their birth certificate to match their gender identity.In March 2018, Magistrate Judge Candy Dale, of the U.S.
District Court for the District of Idaho, ruled that the policy automatically rejecting applications for gender marker changes was discriminatory and unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution. Dale ordered the state to allow transgender individuals to amend their birth certificates if they request such a change and issued an injunction blocking the state from trying to enforce its policy.Following Dale’s ruling, Republican lawmakers in Idaho, egged on by Little, repeatedly tried to undermine the ability of transgender individuals to change the gender markers on their birth certificates — despite having been fined $75,000 after losing the case.Republicans began the process by first attempting to block minors from changing their gender markers through the regular rule-making process, but that rule was ultimately reversed on a technicality.Lawmakers then introduced and passed a bill to restore the state’s previous policy in 2020.
That law contained a provision only allowing gender marker changes within a year after the birth certificate was first issued based on alleged “factual” errors (such as a clerical error).
