Colorado lawmakers should certainly pass current legislation to remove any and all complications for transgender people trying to get birth certificates that reflect how they see themselves.
isn’t perfect and contains an issue that should be remedied.
The Birth Certificate Modernization Act removes an outdated requirement forcing transgender people to have surgery and go before a judge to prove their identity before the gender can be changed on their birth certificate.
Instead, the bill would merely require a statement from a licensed health care professional that the person trying to change their birth certificate has undergone surgical, hormonal or other treatments for gender transition or that the person has an “intersex condition.”
Critics have said this will lead to fraud, child abuse or people nefariously using bathrooms of one gender or another.
These arguments range from the weak to ridiculous.
Forcing someone to have surgery or stand in front of a judge to officially change the gender on a piece of paper so it comports with how they feel amounts to governmental overkill.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Dominick Moreno, D-Commerce City, would put Colorado’s law in line with federal requirements for changing information on passports,
But the bill also calls for sealing the former birth certificates and all documents related to the request for the gender change, out of a concern for privacy. These documents could be retrieved only through a court order or upon a written request.
This goes too far.
Sealing records that are a part of a person’s past — even if it never aligned with who they thought they were — amounts to trying to rewrite the past. The government makes records and changes records but shouldn’t hide records.
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