On Thursday, the state government of Montana announced that it would continue enforcing a policy that cracks down on efforts by so-called “transgender” people to change the gender on their birth certificates, even after a left-wing judge issued an order blocking the policy.
As reported by Politico, District Court Judge Michael Moses ruled in April to temporarily block a law passed in 2021 that made it significantly harder to change one’s gender on their state-issued birth certificate. Moses’ order reinstated a 2017 rule from the Department of Public Health and Human Services that allowed such changes to be made to birth certificates by simply filing an affidavit with the department.
But officials in the administration of Governor Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.) determined that Moses’ ruling was too vague to be followed, and thus they would continue with the original policy.
“The Department thoroughly evaluated the judge’s vague April 2022 decision and crafted our final rule to be consistent with the decision,” said Charlie Brereton, director of the Department of Public Health and Human Services. “It’s unfortunate that the judge’s ruling today does not square with his vague April decision. The 2022 final rule that the Department issued on September 9 remains in effect, and we are carefully considering next steps.”
The 2021 law at the center of the case declared that in order to change their gender as listed on their state birth certificate, they must have first undergone a “surgical procedure.” Moses, however, claimed that this law was unconstitutional because it did not specify what kinds of procedures one needed.
Several far-left groups issued statements complaining about Gianforte’s actions. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called the state’s actions “shocking,” claiming that “it was very clear that Judge Moses expressly required a reversion to the 2017 policy, and anything short of that is a continued flagrant violation of the court’s order.”
Moses himself claimed that his ruling in April had been “clear as a bell,” and said that he was “a bit offended the department thinks they can do anything they want.” Moses was first appointed to his seat by Gianforte’s Democratic predecessor, Steve Bullock.
Montana’s policy on transgender birth certificates represents the broader effort by Republican-led states across the country to crack down on transgenderism, a mental illness in which a person believes that they are a different gender than the one they were born with, that they can change their gender at any time, and also believes that there are more than two genders.