West Virginia... Bill Banning Nonbinary, Intersex Markers on Birth Certificates

[Jessica_Rose]

West Virginia Advanced a Bill Banning Nonbinary, Intersex Markers on Birth Certificates

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/west-virginia-advanced-a-bill-banning-nonbinary-intersex-markers-on-birth-certificates/ar-BB1ikM0G?cvid=6b776f58c0204f21adcf5e175470f378&ei=52

Story by Samantha Riedel (15 Feb 2024)

West Virginia's House of Delegates has passed a bill banning nonbinary and intersex designations on state birth certificates, a Republican-sponsored measure that half the chamber's Democrats also supported.

HB 4233, if it passes the Senate and is signed into law, would officially ban the term "nonbinary" from appearing on West Virginian birth certificates, and a child's sex at birth would be restricted only to "male" or "female." West Virginia already limits sex labels to a male-female binary, as noted by the Movement Advancement Project and as seen on official state application forms. But HB 4233 would codify that erasure as a ban, preventing nonbinary and intersex West Virginians from being legally recognized in the future.

If HB 4233 is approved and receives Republican Gov. Jim Justice's signature, the bill could then be challenged in court. Courts have not always sided with West Virginia's anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the recent past: last year, the Supreme Court struck down the state's ban on trans student athletes in sports leagues that match their lived gender. In 2022, a federal judge also struck down exclusionary rules in the state's Medicaid program, requiring state-sponsored plans to include coverage for gender-affirming medical care.