birth certificates

Federal Court Says Ohio Must Let Transgender People Correct Their Birth Certificates

U.S. District Judge Michael H. Watson ruled on December 16 that Ohio’s refusal to issue corrected birth certificates for transgender people violates the United States Constitution.  Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union sued state officials on behalf of four transgender plaintiffs whose attempts to get their birth certificates changed to correctly identify their gender had been thwarted.  Ray v. McCloud, Case No. 2:18-cv-272 (S.D. Ohio).

At the time Lambda sued two years ago, … <Read More>

Supreme Court Lets Stand 7th Circuit Decision on Lesbian Spouses and Birth Certificates

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review a ruling by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Henderson v. Box, 947 F.3d 482 (2020), that the state of Indiana must extend to married lesbian couples the same parentage presumption it applies to married different sex couples: that a birth mother’s spouse is presumed to be a parent of her child, that  the child be deemed born “in wedlock,” and that both mothers … <Read More>

Federal Court Blocks Idaho Law Barring Transgender Women from Athletic Competition

David C. Nye, the Chief U.S. District Judge for Idaho, issued an injunction on August 17 to block enforcement of Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which Governor Bradley Little had signed into law on March 30.  Hecox v. Little, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 149442.  Passage of this law made Idaho the first state to enact a statutory ban on transgender women and girls competing in women’s interscholastic sports at all levels.

 

The statute … <Read More>

Supreme Court Rules that Same-Sex Spouses are Entitled to Be Listed on Birth Certificates

When a child is born to a woman married to another woman, both women should be listed as parents on the child’s birth certificate. So ruled the Supreme Court, voting 6-3 and reversing a decision by the Arkansas Supreme Court on the last day of its October 2016 Term, which was coincidentally the second anniversary of the Court’s historic marriage equality ruling, Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584 (2015), which provides the basis for … <Read More>

Arkansas Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Discriminatory Birth Certificate Statutes

Although the U.S. Supreme Court issued a sweeping ruling for marriage equality in Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015, pockets of resistance remain in the states. The latest manifestation of this phenomenon comes from Arkansas, where the state’s Supreme Court ruled on December 8 by a 4-3 vote that same-sex couples do not enjoy the same constitutional rights as opposite sex couples when it comes to listing parents on birth certificates.  In Smith v. … <Read More>

Federal Judge Orders Indiana to List Two Moms on Birth Certificates

U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt ruled on June 30 that Indiana was failing to comply with the Supreme Court’s mandate for marriage equality in Obergefell v. Hodges, decided last June 26, when the state refused to list the same-sex spouses of birth mothers on their children’s birth certificates.  Ruling on cases brought by several same-sex couples who were married before their children were born, Judge Pratt found that the mandate to afford equal marriage … <Read More>

States Take Differing Stances on Parental Status of Same-Sex Partners and Spouses

Legal observers have been predicting that the Supreme Court will rule this June in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex couples have a right to marry under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and to have such marriages recognized by every state, but such a ruling will not necessarily settle all the issues of parental rights of same-sex couples that continue to divide the courts.  Litigation in four jurisdictions demonstrates the continuing problem of … <Read More>

Australia High Court: Not Everybody is Male or Female

Imagine a decision by the highest court of a country that begins by stating, “Not all human beings can be classified by sex as either male or female.” This is how the High Court of Australia beings its opinion in New South Wales Registrar v. Norrie, [2014] HCA 11, announced on April 2. According to the court, the New South Wales Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act of 1995 “expressly recognizes that a person’s sex … <Read More>