Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lower court decision on the state’s birth certificate policy and determine whether it’s constitutional.
In an announcement Monday, Drummond referred to a 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision from June 2024 as “wayward.” He said he is challenging the idea that Oklahoma’s approach to recording and maintaining birth certificates is “somehow barred by the U.S. Constitution” because it won’t change a sex designation to match a person’s gender identity.
That federal appeals court ruling sided with three transgender plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by Lambda Legal, who alleged Oklahoma’s approach violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The ruling returned the case to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma.
“This ruling stands as a monumental win for the transgender community in Oklahoma and nationwide, sending a clear message to lawmakers everywhere that unconstitutional discrimination against transgender people will not be tolerated by the courts,” said Lambda Legal Senior Counsel Peter Renn at the time.
The case is based on a 2021 executive order issued by Gov. Kevin Stitt, which banned the amendment of birth certificates in any way that’s inconsistent with state statute. Senate Bill 1100 followed in 2022, requiring the sex designation on a birth certificate to be male or female, and prohibiting nonbinary designations.
From 2018 to 2021, an estimated 100 transgender people received Oklahoma birth certificates with amended sex designations, according to court documents.
In his petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, Drummond said the 10th Circuit’s decision conflicts with a similar one from the 6th Circuit, which stated Tennessee doesn’t unconstitutionally discriminate against transgender people by not allowing them to change their birth certificate’s sex designation.
Drummond also argues Oklahoma “does not guarantee anyone a birth certificate matching gender identity, only a certificate that accurately records a historical fact: the sex of each newborn.”
“Nothing in the Constitution prohibits States from permanently documenting sex on a birth certificate,” the petition argues. “A newborn’s sex is an objective fact that has long been recorded and preserved in state records. And the Fourteenth Amendment does not require Oklahoma to catalogue gender identity — years after birth — on birth certificates.”
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