Transgender Texans can no longer update the sex listed on their birth certificates, according to a policy change quietly rolled out on Friday.
Texans who have secured a court order to update the sex listed on their birth certificates can no longer do so at this time, a spokesperson for the Department of State Health Services confirmed to The Texas Newsroom.
Birth certificates can be changed for children due to hospital error or omission.
The policy change comes as conservative states across the country move to make it more difficult for transgender Americans to update their documents with the sex that matches their gender identity. Five other states already ban changes to birth certificates, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an advocacy organization that tracks anti-LGBTQ policies.
There are roughly 93,000 transgender adults living in Texas, according to a 2022 survey by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.
KXAN first reported about the change on Saturday.
The Texas health agency made the change without a public announcement. It went into effect a little more than a week after the Department of Public Safety also blocked changes to the sex listed on driver’s licenses unless it is to fix a clerical error.
That decision was made after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton raised questions about the validity of these court orders.
Chris Van Deusen, the spokesperson for the Department of State Health Services, pointed to these same questions to explain the agency’s birth certificate policy change.
“Recent public reports have highlighted concerns about the validity of court orders purporting to amend sex for purposes of state-issued documents. DSHS is seeking assistance from the Office of Attorney General to determine the applicability of these concerns to amendments to vital records,” Van Deusen told The Texas Newsroom in a statement.
A Republican, Paxton has vocally opposed expanding rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people both at the federal and state level.
Before Friday, the state health agency’s website included information about how to “correct” a child’s birth certificate using a “certified copy of a court order,” according to an archived version of the webpage. This information has been removed; the site now only includes instructions for changing the sex listed “due to proven incompletion or inaccuracy.
Johnathan Gooch with Equality Texas, an LGBTQ rights organization, said this change will affect transgender Texans' ability to carry out everyday, necessary tasks like opening a bank account.
"Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has bullied state agencies into denying the specific types of updates that transgender Texans need," Gooch added. "Ironically, that means the state’s top legal officer has instructed state agencies to deny court orders from state judges. So, what should be a simple administrative task has now become a nightmare."
The Transgender Education Network of Texas, or TENT, posted on social media about the change last weekend. They promised to fight policies like this during the next state legislative session, which kicks off in January.
“Our transness is not determined by a piece of paper and cannot be taken away by hateful policies,” the organization wrote on Instagram.
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