Sunday, February 17, 2019

A Draw

If their effort to erase us one politician saw the light and pulled his bill but the bill to allow us to change our birth certificate was also pulled.
Lawmaker pulls proposed transgender birth certificate ban
KUTV
By Associated Press
February 14th 2019

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah lawmaker is shelving a proposal that would have blocked transgender people from changing their gender on birth certificates, prompting a sigh of relief for LGBT advocates.

The legislation pulled Thursday by Republican Rep. Merrill Nelson would have changed general longstanding practice and declared a gender characteristics determined at birth "innate and immutable."

The proposal had been condemned by LGBT groups and prompted warnings it could put the state in a negative national spotlight at a time when Salt Lake City is trying to attract a future Winter Olympics.

A competing proposal that would have created a clear path to changing documents has also been pulled.
Back in January the Utah Supreme Court heard a case on birth certificates,
Utah Supreme Court wades into transgender rights and birth certificates
FOX 13 Salt Lake City
By Ben Winslow
January 8, 2018

 SALT LAKE CITY -- The Utah Supreme Court is taking up a thorny legal issue involving gender identity and birth certificates.

The justices heard arguments Monday in a case brought by two people who have tried to get the courts to change their gender on their birth certificate to reflect their gender identity. The impact of that change is widespread, said Angie Rice.

"If we pull a credit card out in a restaurant and it has a male name on it, or I get stopped at a traffic light and it doesn't appear to be what we see," she told FOX 13. "I've had difficult times in airports."
The courts in Utah have a mixed record for granting gender change so now the case has ended up in the Utah Supreme Court.
Justice Thomas Lee acknowledged they were in "a brand new frontier." He appeared to be uncomfortable with the fact the state of Utah has declined to weigh in on the case, and whether the Court should just rule alone. The Utah Attorney General's Office filed papers early on in the case essentially saying they would stay out of it.

"This case raises some really important questions of statutory interpretation, there's a constitutional question," said Justice Lee. "And we have no adversary briefing."
But jumped in it did and so did the legislature, and the legislators have pulled back for now.

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