Filing My Birth Certificate Court Case

Often, as a person transitions, life in general, and priorities as well, tend to change. I had gotten to the point that I was ready to change my gender on my birth certificate to accurately reflect who I am. Prior to that point, it hadn't been something I was thinking about doing, but now, all the paperwork had been changed except that, and it just seemed to be the time. 

In the state I lived in, the Health Department was the keeper of vital records, including birth certificates. So, they were the agency that I had to file an application with, to make changes. The problem is that the state is pretty conservative, and leadership of the Health Department has a pretty anti-trans approach. Specifically, they allow all sorts of changes to birth certificates, but not gender changes for trans people. 

A federal court case resulted in the federal judge ordering the State to allow these changes. But, the state didn't want to, so while they made a process as required by the federal court, they created a process that would be nearly impossible to successfully navigate.

Now, trans people were required to get their county's probate court to order a gender change. Then, the Health Department would make the change. They set it up this way because the probate courts would not order such a change. Just to make sure, the county probate courts immediately began refusing to allow such cases to even be filed.

I discovered this when I went to my local courthouse to file the case to update my birth certificate. Even though I have the legal right to file the case, they bluntly refused to even accept the paperwork. By that, I mean they didn't even touch the papers, but left me standing there with the papers held out as they refused.