Townhall has covered how some states have taken steps to ensure that transgender ideology does not make its way into the culture. This applies to schools, restrooms, and, in some cases, identifications on official state documents.
Earlier this year, Townhall covered how residents in Arkansas were no longer permitted to use “gender neutral” gender markers on their state identification cards.
"This policy is just common sense. Only women give birth, men shouldn’t play women’s sports, and there are only two genders. As long as I’m Governor, Arkansas state government will not endorse nonsense,” GOP Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said of the policy.
Then, reports broke that Texas residents could no longer change the sex on their driver’s license to align with their “gender identity.” Sheri Gipson, the chief of the state’s driver license division, confirmed the policy change.
This week, a state judge reversed course on a law preventing transgender people from changing their sex designation on their birth certificates and driver’s licenses.
District Judge Mike Menahan issued an order on Monday blocking the Montana law while the case moves through the courts (via the Associated Press):
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, but he disagreed with the state’s argument that discrimination on the basis of transgender status is not discrimination on the basis of sex.
“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.
Reportedly, the case was filed in April by two transgender women on behalf of themselves and others who have been unable to obtain documents “that accurately reflect their sex,” the complaint said.
Plaintiff Jessica Kalarchik, who was born in Montana, said in a statement Tuesday that she was frustrated that while “being able to live my life openly as the woman I know myself to be,” Montana “wants me to carry around a birth certificate that incorrectly lists my sex as male.”
“The right to privacy does not include a right to replace an objective fact of biological sex on a government document,” Assistant Attorney General Alwyn Lansing argued for the state.