TUCSON, AZ – Today, a federal district court in Tucson struck down Arizona’s outdated requirement that transgender people must have surgery to change the gender marker on their birth certificates. The court granted Plaintiffs’ motion for a permanent injunction ruling that the surgery requirement violates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and must be enjoined. Plaintiffs are a class of transgender individuals born in Arizona who seek to change the sex listed on their birth certificates. The case was filed by the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, Cooley LLP, and Osborn Maledon, PA.   

This ruling is a win for all transgender people born in Arizona. This permanent injunction ensures transgender people born in Arizona will be able to amend the gender marker on their birth certificate.   

When transgender people cannot correct the gender marker on their birth certificates, they may encounter practical problems and harms. Any time they need to produce a birth certificate, they are forced to disclose their transgender status, which is private information that a person should be free to share or not. Additionally, being forcibly “outed” puts individuals at risk of discrimination, harassment, and violence. Arizona’s outdated surgery requirement has been particularly harmful for transgender youth who are effectively barred from correcting the gender marker on their birth certificates because transgender young people do not undergo surgical treatment. For young people, their birth certificate impacts everything from school records to camp registration.   

“We are grateful that the Court ruled in Plaintiffs’ favor and found that this outdated requirement violated Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights. We are thrilled that the Arizona Department of Health Services will be permanently enjoined from enforcing this irrational and overly burdensome requirement, and Plaintiffs will be able to amend their birth certificates to reflect who they are,” said Rachel Berg, NCLR Staff Attorney.   

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The National Center for LGBTQ Rights (NCLR) is a national legal organization committed to advancing the human and civil rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community through litigation, public policy advocacy, and public education. Since its founding, NCLR has maintained a longstanding commitment to racial and economic justice and the LGBTQ community’s most vulnerable. www.nclrights.org