Legislation

March 28, 2017

Credit: One Colorado and OutFrontMagazine

For the third year in a row, the Colorado Senate State, Veterans, and Military Affairs Committee voted down the Birth Certificate Modernization Act, a bill that would bring Colorado law in line with federal policy for transgender Coloradans who want to update the gender on their birth certificate.

http://www.outfrontmagazine.com/news/colorado-senate-committee-vote-birth-certificate-modernization-act/

For the third year in a row, the Colorado Senate State, Veterans, and Military Affairs Committee voted down the Birth Certificate Modernization Act, a bill that would bring Colorado law in line with federal policy for transgender Coloradans who want to update the gender on their birth certificate.

This is the second pro-queer legislation that has been introduced and killed in the Senate within a week — House Bill 17-1156 would have prohibited licensed doctors, psychiatrists or therapists from using conversion therapy techniques on anyone under the age of 18, and was killed in the same committee last Thursday.

Current Colorado law requires a person to have “sex reassignment surgery (SRS)” in order to update the gender marker on their birth certificate to accurately reflect their lived gender. For many transgender people, this means the gender on their birth certificate will never be updated to reflect who they are because many people do not want, cannot afford, or do not need surgery.

It also means many transgender Coloradans will continue to face discrimination in employment, housing, and even exercising the fundamental right to vote until our law is fixed.

“Surgeries, like those required by the state of Colorado to update gender on a birth certificate, are highly invasive procedures performed by very few surgeons in this country — making access to surgery challenging and cost prohibitive,” Todd Garrity, a local trans activist, told OUT FRONT in early January.

Additionally, these surgeries leave an individual sterile, can have serious complications, and many transgender patients may not qualify for surgery for health reasons.

The federal government determined that requiring surgery to allow transgender people to update their gender on identification documents was onerous, and subsequently dropped the requirement for social security cards, driver’s licenses, and passports in 2010. People can now update their gender marker on federal documents with a letter from their qualified medical provider.

The committee heard multiple testimonies from numerous transgender Coloradans, their families, and experts demonstrating that this bill would not only make their lives easier, but would also save lives. Removing this specific barrier would have significantly reduced the stress and trauma a person goes through in the process of updating their gender.

“This much-needed legislation would simply have brought Colorado law in line with existing policies at the federal level, and in doing so would have protected the privacy of transgender Coloradans and protected them from discrimination,” One Colorado’s Executive Director Daniel Ramos said in a statement.

Queer Senator Dominick Moreno and Represenative Daneya Esgar sponsored House Bill 1122, and have pledged to continue this fight in years to come on Twitter.