Kansas to toughen rules on transgender birth certificates

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

May 12, 8:50 PM EDT

Kansas to toughen rules on transgender birth certificates

By JOHN HANNA
AP Political Writer

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- Kansas is pursuing regulations that would give it one of the nation's toughest policies against allowing transgender people to update their birth certificates, prompting anger from advocates and threats of a lawsuit.

State health department officials contend an existing agency regulation allowing amended birth certificates conflicts with state law and needs to be eliminated. The agency has been pursuing changes for months and could impose them within six weeks.

The department's revised rules would allow a change only if a person or his or her parents could document that the gender was incorrectly recorded at the time of birth.

Three transgender rights advocates called on the department to abandon its proposed changes during a hearing Thursday. The National Center for Transgender Equality says only Idaho and Tennessee have legal policies against changing gender listings on birth certificates, though Ohio also is not allowing it.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TRANSGENDER_BIRTH_CERTIFICATES_KSOL-?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-05-12-20-50-32

[SheilaT]

1. It seems to me that someone who grows up

convinced he or she is inside the wrong body gender, then that strikes me as good enough to say the gender was wrongly recorded at time of birth.

I'll admit I don't know a lot about transgender, although I've recently met several people who've told me all about their transgender children, and I'm in complete awe of those parents, and how they've been totally accepting and supportive of the child's journey.

So Kansas (or its government) needs to get up to speed on this, and allow people to wind up with a birth certificate that matches their reality.

[jberryhill]

2. So THAT'S why Obama's been hiding his real one!!!

[lbrtbell]

3. No surprise there

My surname is misspelled on my birth certificate, and I can't get it corrected because their birth certificate laws are so restrictive. It's nuts.