Michigan Will Now Allow Anyone To Change Their Gender On Their Birth Certificate

Michigan law, dating back to 1978, currently states a person must provide to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) a doctor’s affidavit certifying that they have had sex-reassignment surgery in order to be able to change their sex on their birth certificate. Without that affidavit, Michigan law requires the request to change your gender on your birth certificate to be denied.

The Director of MDHHS’s Elizabeth Hertel did not like that part of the law and made a formal request for the Attorney General’s opinion on that law last February.

Yesterday Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel declared that state law which requires sex-reassignment surgery to change the sex designation on a person's birth certificate is unconstitutional under Michigan’s Constitution.

Never saw that one coming.

The Detroit News reported that in her declaration Nessel wrote:

“It is not clear why Michigan’s law for changing the sex designation on birth certificates, when used for identification purposes, would require a transgender person to undergo invasive, often irreversible and expensive surgery”

She went on to say:

“The law violates Michiganders’ most basic and fundamental protections under the Constitution…As written, it is a tool of intolerance that treats one group of people different from the rest of us by requiring thousands of residents to undergo expensive and invasive medical procedures in order to amend their birth certificates to reflect their true identity.”

If someone asks to be identified as a gender they are not on an official government document how is it intolerant to ask them to change their physical gender to the gender they want on an official government document?  Their actual scientific/biological gender can never be changed.

In her own statement, Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services Director Elizabeth Hertel said that removing the requirement is “the right thing to do”.

Hertel then said:

“Consistent with the opinion, applicants will no longer need to undergo sex reassignment surgery or to provide proof that surgery has been performed. MDHHS is already working on a process to assist individuals in making these changes”

I would like to know what other government documents and entries people can change because they no longer identify or accept what they were assigned?

For instance, if someone no longer identifies as being white, black, brown can they change that biological trait on an official government document?

If they have blue eyes can they change that biological trait on their driver’s license?

What if someone does not like their name, can you change your name on a document without the government asking you to jump through hoops like going to the court to officially have your name changed?  By asking for you to officially change your name via the courts before you could on your driver’s license and birth certificate Dana Nessel and Elizabeth Hertel would think that was “a tool of intolerance that treats one group of people different from the rest of us”.

The point is if you are going to legally allow someone to put false information on a government document then how can anyone trust any government documents.

What if a fugitive wanted to change their gender, eye color and name on their Michigan driver’s license or birth certificate to make it that much harder to find them?  Under the reasoning in this opinion, they can do so and they will then become harder to find and a danger to the residents of Michigan.

I am not attempting to belittle the mental issues that people with Gender dysphoria are coping with but I believe that is a separate issue from having the correct information on official government documents.  If we turn to a standard of what someone believes as opposed to scientific/biological evidence then we are turning our backs on science and reliability in our documents.

When is the last time you needed to use your birth certificate?