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Transgender People Sue Ohio Over Birth-Certificate Gender Rules

photo of transgender suit supporters
JO INGLES
/
OHIO PUBLIC RADIO

Transgender Ohioans who want to change their birth certificates to reflect the gender with which they identify are filing a lawsuit against the state over that policy. The ACLU and Lambda Legal filed the lawsuit. 

Stacie Ray is one of the plaintiffs. She says she was embarrassed, harassed and threatened with physical violence after a human resources employee publicly noted the gender on her birth certificate does not match the gender on her driver’s license and other legal documents.

“I was referred to as ‘the freak,’ and the female coworker said if she ever encountered me in the women’s restroom that she would beat me up.”

Aaron Baer with the Citizens for Community Values says his group doesn’t condone threats like Ray experienced. But he says the ACLU is sacrificing medical accuracy for political ideology.

“What they are trying to force the state to do here is falsify medical records.”

The ACLU says Ohio is one of only three states that has yet to change its policies on transgender people and birth certificates.

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.