Ninth Circuit lifts block on Arizona law requiring verification of sex change
A two-judge Ninth Circuit panel reinstated an Arizona law requiring transgender people to submit a doctor's written verification of sex reassignment surgery to amend their birth certificate's sex marker, reversing a lower court's permanent injunction. Judge Roopali Desai wrote the statute survives rational basis review because it doesn't classify by transgender status, since anyone, transgender or not, can alternatively obtain a court order.
The panel found Judge James Soto erred in permanently blocking the surgery requirement and remanded the case for further proceedings. Plaintiffs, a group of Arizona transgender people including minors who sued in 2020, argued the court-order alternative is difficult and expensive enough to amount to a constitutional violation; the panel disagreed.
Attorney Rachel Berg, representing the plaintiffs, nonetheless called the ruling a win, saying it clarifies that Arizona courts permit any transgender person to update their birth certificate without a specific medical procedure, just not without a judge's involvement instead.
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