A rule banning transgender people in Montana from changing the sex designation on their birth certificates and driver’s licenses will be temporarily blocked following a state judge’s ruling.
District Judge Mike Menahan on Monday ruled that the ban would be blocked while the case proceeds through the courts.
Under state law, transgender people born in Montana are blocked from changing the sex designation on their birth certificate, and transgender residents are prevented from changing the sex on their driver’s licenses without an amended birth certificate.
Two transgender women filed the case in April on behalf of themselves and others who have been unable to obtain documents “that accurately reflect their sex,” the complaint said.
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Demonstrators gather on the steps of the Montana State Capitol in Helena, Montana, in March 2021. (Thom Bridge/Independent Record via AP, File)
The state had argued that sex is binary, either male or female, and that being transgender is not a protected class of people who could have their constitutional rights to privacy violated.
Menahan said it was not necessary at this point in the litigation to determine whether transgender Montanans constitute a special class on the basis of their transgender status, and disagreed with the state’s argument that discrimination on the basis of transgender status is not discrimination on the basis of sex.
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Transgender rights activists hold signs as they march through the University of Montana campus in May 2023 in Missoula, Montana. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images, File)
“If the challenged state actions discriminate against transgender individuals on the basis of their transgender status, they also necessarily discriminate on the basis of sex,” he wrote.
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The ruling comes days after the Montana supreme court temporarily blocked a state law banning transgender surgeries for minors, saying the law likely violates Montana’s constitutional right to privacy.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.