(LifeSiteNews) – The state of Montana will no longer prevent people from changing the sex recorded on their birth certificates.
This past Monday, September 19, the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services broke the news that they would be succumbing, at least temporarily, to Judge Michael Moses’ April 2022 injunction that they must allow transgender individuals to make the change to their birth certificates, even without undergoing the so-called “gender transition” that Montana had previously required.
Nevertheless, Jon Ebelt, a spokesperson for the Department of Public Health, said that “the department stands by its actions and analysis concerning the April 2022 preliminary injunction decision, as set forth in its rulemaking that addressed critical regulatory gaps left by the court.”
This announcement of compliance comes after months of defiance on the part of the Health Department, which held that physical sex is immutable.
RELATED: Montana bans sex changes on birth certificates to reflect ‘gender identity’
Passed in April 2021, Bill 280 blocked transgender individuals from changing their gender on their birth certificates unless the Department of Health received a court order telling them that the individual had surgically transitioned.
Before Bill 280 was passed, transgender individuals who wished to mark this change on their birth certificate merely had to provide an affidavit to the state. This new bill meant that individuals who did not want or could not afford sex-reassignment surgery could no longer change their birth certificate.
However, in April 2022, Judge Moses blocked Bill 280, saying it was “too vague.” In response, on Friday, September 9, Montana adopted a less ambiguous position, declaring that one’s sex was unchangeable, and therefore could no longer be changed on the birth certificate, even if the individual had undergone surgery. Now, the only way that one could change their sex would be if it had been accidentally documented wrongly at the time of birth.
The Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services stood by this new interpretation, even defying a court order last Thursday, September 15, that reiterated Judge Moses’ April 2022 order to stop banning transgender people from changing their gender on their birth certificate. However, on Monday they announced that they would abide by the court’s decision and temporarily allow such changes to be made on a transgender individuals’ birth certificate.