Arizona House approves ban on birth certificate gender changes for trans residents

Republican lawmakers in the Arizona
House of Representatives have passed another anti-transgender bill that
would bar trans people born in Arizona from amending their birth
certificates to reflect their gender identity. 

Rep. Rachel Keshel, the Tucson
Republican and member of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus who
sponsored the bill, claimed that its purpose was only to bring the
state’s birth certificate law in line with the U.S. Constitution and to
protect “the integrity and accuracy of vital records.”

But multiple Democratic lawmakers pointed out that her claims were untrue. 

“I’m really frustrated with this,
because this is blatantly anti-trans, and there’s no question about it,”
Rep. Brian Garcia, D-Tempe, said on Feb. 6 when the House Judiciary
Committee considered the bill.

Garcia echoed the comments of Rep.
Alma Hernandez, D-Tucson, who said during her seven years as a lawmaker
she’d seen bill after bill from her Republican colleagues targeting the
trans community. 

She accused the Republicans who
backed the anti-trans proposals of espousing the right to individual
freedom — but only when it’s convenient for them and when it aligns with
their personal beliefs. When it comes to transgender people, they go
out of their way to deny them individual rights. 

House Bill 2438
passed the House on Feb. 19 by a vote of 33-26 — only Republicans
supported it — and now heads to the Arizona Senate for consideration. 

The bill is likely to pass through
the Republican-controlled Senate but will almost certainly be vetoed by
Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, who has promised to block all
anti-transgender proposals that make it to her desk. 

Another anti-trans proposal, House Bill 2062,
which would enshrine a narrow definition of biological sex into state
law based on a person’s physical reproductive characteristics, passed
through the House last week. 

Keshel’s bill would remove from
Arizona law the option for transgender people to amend the gender
markers on their birth certificates to align with their gender identity,
and instead only allow for changes if the original information on the
certificate was “factually inaccurate at the time of recordation.” 

I don’t have a constitutional right to
have a different birthday on my birth certificate… (because) maybe I
don’t like my horoscope.

– Rep. Alexander Kolodin, R-Scottsdale

On Feb. 5, several Republicans who
backed the bill claimed that those changes were aimed at bringing
Arizona law in line with the U.S. Constitution. Keshel and Rep.
Alexander Kolodin, R-Scottsdale, both said the bill was in response to a
federal judge last year striking down
Arizona’s requirement for transgender people to undergo gender
transition surgery before changing the gender markers on their birth
certificates. 

In August, U.S. District Court Judge
James Soto ruled that the law violated the Constitution’s equal
protection clause. He also said that requiring transgender minors who
have not undergone gender reassignment surgery to use birth certificates
that don’t align with their expressed gender identity would
involuntarily “out” them as transgender every time they have to present a
birth certificate, disregarding their right to privacy. 

Kolodin claimed HB2438 would make Arizona’s laws constitutional, based on a ruling by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals last summer that upheld a Tennessee law that treats the sex listed on a birth certificate as an unchangeable historical fact. 

Kolodin and Keshel disregarded
portions of Soto’s ruling on the Arizona law, specifically when he wrote
that it violated the equal protection clause because those who aren’t
transgender “are not presented with the unlawful choice of being
stripped of their bodily autonomy or face discrimination, harassment,
and potential violence.”

I exist. We exist. I did not choose to
be transgender — nobody does. The unnecessary, unceasing effort by the
Arizona state legislators to deny and eradicate our existence is
genocide at its worst and bigotry at its best.

– Paul Bixlar, the first openly transgender woman to be elected to an Arizona school board

A transgender woman who spoke to the
Judiciary Committee as it debated the bill on Feb. 5 told lawmakers that
Soto in no way implied in his ruling that banning all transgender
people from changing their gender markers would bring Arizona’s law in
line with the Constitution. 

“There is no reading of the decision
that would imply that the court would tolerate a total denial of the
ability of transgender people to amend the sex on their birth
certificate,” Erica Keppler told the lawmakers. 

Keppler added that having a birth
certificate that doesn’t match their legal name or outward identity
could impact a person’s ability to prove their citizenship and to vote. 

“I am a transgender woman,” Paul
Bixlar, the first openly transgender woman to be elected to an Arizona
school board, told the committee Feb. 5. “I exist. We exist. I did not
choose to be transgender — nobody does. The unnecessary, unceasing
effort by the Arizona state legislators to deny and eradicate our
existence is genocide at its worst and bigotry at its best.” 

Bixlar served on the Liberty
Elementary School Governing Board for four years before resigning just
before the end of her term in December. 

Chairman of the Committee Quang
Nguyen, R-Prescott Valley, who escaped Vietnam just days before the fall
of Saigon, told Bixlar that she should take more consideration before
using the term genocide. 

During the same meeting, Keshel said
that HB2438 aligned with the first executive order of President Donald
Trump’s second administration, issued Jan. 20, which sought to erase
transgender and nonbinary identities in the eyes of the federal
government. 

Several lawsuits have been filed challenging the executive order, including the portion that ordered the federal government to stop issuing passports with amended gender markers. 

During discussions about Keshel’s
bill in committee on Feb. 5 and on the House floor on Feb. 19, Kolodin
mocked transgender Arizonans’ desire to have a birth certificate that
reflects their gender identity. 

“I don’t have a constitutional right
to have a different birthday on my birth certificate,” Kolodin said
during committee on Feb. 5, because “maybe I don’t like my horoscope.”

Instead, he said, lawmakers should
choose to view gender as an immutable physical quality equal to sex,
which he described as the “sane Republican way.”

Scientists who study human biology and medicine use the term sex when referring to biology and gender when referring to “self-representation influenced by social, cultural, and personal experience,” according to Yale School of Medicine. 

In speaking against the bill during a
debate on Feb. 17 and during voting on Feb. 19, Rep. Patty Contreras, a
Phoenix Democrat and co-chair of the Legislature’s LGBTQ caucus,
pointed out that the bill did nothing to tackle the most pressing issues
facing Arizonans like the lack of affordable housing or the future of
the state’s water supply. 

Only 30 people officially registered in support of the bill, while 336 signed in against it. 

“This bill would erase transgender men and women,” Contreras said
before voting against the bill on Feb. 19. “This bill would make it
difficult for transgender men and women to live and work in their
communities as the true human beings that they are. They are here, still
human and deserving of love and rights. Having documents such as birth
certificates that do not accurately reflect the person’s gender identity
will impact their daily life.”