AG Rokita gets involved in case over gender-marker changes
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Indiana’s Attorney General has filed motions to get the State of Indiana involved in a court battle allowing people to change their gender markers on birth certificates. The case revolves around Indiana trial courts which have ordered the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH) to allow gender-marker changes.
In March, Gov. Mike Braun signed an executive order — following in President Donald Trump’s lead — which was used to block IDOH from allowing gender-marker changes.
At the time, the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana challenged the executive order in courts.
The ACLU’s lawsuit said, “People born in Indiana can receive new birth certificates after a name change or with the name of their new parents after an adoption and have, in the past, been able to receive gender marker changes after a court order.” Braun’s executive order violates privacy rights by “forcing them to disclose their transgender status,” the ACLU said at the time.
According to Ken Falk, legal director at the ACLU of Indiana, only transgender Hoosiers are meaningfully targeted by the order.
Attorney General Todd Rokita filed a motion Tuesday to get his office involved in the case, saying, “the state has a clear interest in protecting the integrity of its own processes of issuing birth certificates.”
In a press release, Rokita makes the claim that changing birth certificate gender markers is “falsifying records.” He believes that as someone can’t change a newborn’s length or weight years later, they shouldn’t be able to changed the listed sex as well.
While the State of Indiana was not directly involved in the case, Rokita’s announcement says “state laws already [provide] clarity on these matters.” His reasoning is that Braun’s executive order instructed state agencies “to interpret and apply ‘sex’ to mean ‘individual human being’s immutable biological classification as either male or female’ as determined at conception.”