A federal district court in Tucson granted the plaintiffs’ request to certify a class action in a case challenging Arizona’s outdated requirement that transgender people must have surgery to change the gender marker on their birth certificates. This ruling means that this case will now benefit all transgender people born in Arizona not just the individual plaintiffs who originally brought the case. The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) along with co-counsel Cooley LLP & Osborn Maledon, P.A. initially filed the case on behalf of three transgender individuals who sought to correct their birth certificates. Rachel Berg, NCLR Staff Attorney stated, “The stories of our clients are just a small representation of the thousands of individuals born in Arizona who are unable to amend their birth certificates to reflect who they are. We are thrilled that this case will now apply to all transgender individuals born in Arizona who wish to amend their birth certificates to accurately reflect their gender identity. Access to correct identity documents is critically important to the health and well-being of transgender people.” Barrett Anderson, Attorney for Cooley LLP concluded, “We are pleased that the court has certified this case as a class action. With this ruling, all transgender people born in Arizona seeking to amend the gender marker on their birth certificate will now be eligible for relief from the state’s discriminatory & unconstitutional law.” The lawsuit alleges that Arizona’s surgical requirement violates the Equal Protection & Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
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