Topline
Kansas will stop changing transgender people’s birth certificates to reflect their preferred gender identities, instead limiting residents to their gender assigned at birth, according to the state health department, marking Kansas as one of four states to prohibit such changes to birth certificates.
A judge ruled in support of the change in late August. (Photo by LEONARDO MUNOZ/AFP via Getty … [+]
Key Facts
The change was announced by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment on Friday—about two weeks after a federal judge ruled against a federal court order mandating the state health department issue amended birth certificates to transgender Kansans.
The state health department said in a FAQ post on its website that if a resident changed their birth certificate to align with their gender identity, the certificate is still valid, though it added “if a certified copy of that record is requested, then the new copy must reflect the sex assigned at birth.”
Kansas joins Montana, Oklahoma and Tennessee in forbidding such birth certificate changes, according to PBS.
Key Background
The state health department cited the new change in accordance with Senate Bill 180, otherwise known as the Kansas Women’s Bill of Rights, which enforces gender identifications to match the gender assigned at birth in Kansas. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the bill in April and said Friday the state shouldn’t “discriminate or encroach into Kansans’ personal lives” because it’s wrong and bad for business, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal. More than 900 transgender people in Kansas have changed their birth certificates since 2019, when Kelly took office, PBS reported.
Further Reading
Transgender Kansans can no longer get birth certificate changes as KDHE will follow SB 180 (Topeka Capital-Journal)
