Dignity and Recognition

Anti-trans facilities bans, popularly called “bathroom bans,” force trans people to use bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, and other sex-separated facilities according to their sex assigned at birth. These bills, unlike athlete bans, attack trans people of all ages, not just trans youth. But, just as athlete bans deny trans athletes the right to be themselves on the playing field, facilities bans deny trans people the right to be themselves in the most private of spaces.

These bans vary in their scope. Some apply only to public schools, and these are sometimes paired with sports bans. Other facilities bans apply to all government buildings, including schools and universities, and the broadest of these bans include shelters, prisons, and more.

Having state issued IDs and documents like birth certificates that accurately reflect your gender identity is critical to everyday life. You need legal documentation like a birth certificate to get a job, to buy a car or a house, to board a cruise ship, to get admitted to a school, and even to get a bus pass or a library card. Lawmakers know this, and when they pass bills to severely restrict or even ban trans and nonbinary people from updating their IDs and birth certificates to reflect their gender identity, they know they are making life harder for their trans and nonbinary constituents.

ID and document change bans have been enacted in several states, with varying specific restrictions and scopes. Some of these laws require proof of gender affirming surgery before the gender marker on a birth certificate can be changed, making the process of getting a corrected birth certificate even more time consuming and expensive. Other laws ban “X” gender markers on state IDs and birth certificates, meaning nonbinary residents of that state cannot have their gender reflected on official documents. The most restrictive of these laws ban changing the gender marker on birth certificates or state IDs at all, or require that transgender people have birth certificates and IDs that reflect both their gender identity and their sex assigned at birth.

Regardless of the specifics of an ID/document change ban, the impact is similar. they make it difficult and stressful for trans and nonbinary people to work, travel, and more.

Numerous states have passed or attempted to pass bills to define “sex” in the state code as binary, immutable, and synonymous with “gender”. This effectively allows state sanctioned discrimination against transgender and intersex people by refusing to recognize that they even exist under state law.

While the specifics of these laws vary, they generally remove references to “gender” in the state code, and define “sex” as only male or female, based on a person’s sex assigned at birth; that is to say, based on presumed reproductive anatomy, chromosomes, hormones, or other physical characteristics at birth. These laws also define sex as a permanent category, implying that transgender people’s gender identity would never be legally recognized under state law. These laws could have dangerous implications for transgender and intersex people when it comes to bathrooms, identity documents, and other areas of law or policy. And, in fact, sometimes these bills include explicit anti-trans facilities bans and/or explicit ID/document change bans. But, oftentimes the full implications of these bills are difficult to determine because they are vaguely written.

Marriage equality has been the law of the land since 2015’s Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. This landmark decision granted same-sex couples the right to marry, regardless of their state of residence. The makeup of the Court is very different now than it was in 2015, however, and anti-equality forces are gearing up for a fight to reverse the Obergefell decision.

Marriage equality is critical. It allows same-sex couples the same rights afforded to any other married couple: hospital visitation rights, rights to make decisions about their spouses medical care, rights to receive spousal benefits, and the right to jointly adopt children.

Lawmakers in several states – including Idaho, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Dakota – have introduced resolutions urging the Supreme Court to overturn the precedent set in Obergefell, returning the country to a patchwork of laws where same-sex marriages can be performed in some places, but not in others. These resolutions do not carry the force of law. The federal government took the important step of passing the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022, which ensures that, in the event that marriage equality were overturned in any state, that same-sex marriages performed anywhere in the United States would have to be recognized everywhere. PFLAG National remains vigilant, however, and will fight to preserve marriage equality.