The ACLU vs the state of Illinois

From a previous post:

The other issue that has been busy percolating through my brain has been the legal hoops that must be jumped through in the US state of Illinois regarding changing Birth Certificates.

First, for the situation to be corrected, the person concerned must have had sufficient genital reconstruction surgery, and of the right type. Now while that's arguably a problem, especially for Intersexed people, and those whose medical conditions preclude such surgery, let's take it as read that it's reasonable. It's certainly not wholly unreasonable.

Except... that the surgery isn't what's important. What is important is who performs it, not what is done. The surgeon must be one registered in the US to practice medicine. Certification of what was done by a US doctor isn't sufficient. This was introduced as the result of a deliberately fraudulent certification by one US doctor, once, a matter of compassion. Ok, so maybe that might be seen as reasonable, though surely certification by multiple US doctors would be a better solution.

Except... from a support group I'm on, for patients of the surgeon I went to...

Well, I have discussed the below situation with legal counsel and the Illinois law is quite clear. An affidavit from another physician does not meet the law's requirements. I have posted a file in the file section of what I'm doing next.

Here are the outcomes of my research:

Upon submission of the application for Birth Certificate Change for the state of Illinois an investigator is assigned to research each application and to confirm the affidavits are valid. In my case, even getting Dr. Suporn licensed in Michigan would not meet the requirements because he would not have been licensed in a state within the United States at the time my surgery was performed.

So what sex a person is, who they are allowed to marry, is not determined by the reality of their body: it's not determined by who performed the surgery even: it depends on what, who, and when. And all to stop "same sex marriage".

Whisky Tango Foxtrot?

At some point, you have to realise that you're playing a game by someone else's rules, a game where things like compassion, rationality, even sanity have no place. A game where the rules can be changed by the enemy at whim, where there really are no rules, no consistency, just pure irrational spite.

Well, it's taken some time, but now the ACLU has taken notice. From the Chicago Tribune :

In August 2007, a clerk and her supervisor told Rothkopf, who was born in Dixon, Ill., that the birth certificate couldn't be changed because she had planned to have her sex reassignment surgery outside the United States. On Tuesday, Rothkopf, 36, and Chicago resident Victoria "Tori" Kirk, both of whom had their sex-change surgeries in Thailand, sued the State of Illinois.

Their lawsuit, filed by attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union, called the denials a violation of state law and asked a judge to order that their birth certificates be changed.

"It could create significant problems for me in the future," Kirk said Tuesday at a news conference. "A document that says I am male puts me at risk of embarrassment, harassment and possibly even physical violence."

The two women said they chose to undergo procedures in Thailand because they felt the one-step surgery offered there would be medically safer. Both women have been able to change the gender on their driver's licenses, passports and Social Security cards.

From the Chicago Sun-Times :

Officials with the Illinois Department of Public Health -- which encompasses the Vital Records division -- say their hands are tied.

"We are following the Vital Records Act, and we are simply enforcing that," said department spokeswoman Melaney Arnold. "The part that we are particularly looking at is the definition of physician. Physician means a person licensed to practice medicine in Illinois or any other state."

As in, one of the United States.
...
Joel Ginsberg, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, estimates that between 1,600 and 2,000 patients undergo major gender-related surgeries each year.

"Given that many if not most health plans will not reimburse for medically necessary transgender surgery procedures, many transgender people find it necessary to leave the country in order to get the services they need," Ginsberg said. "So it's both illogical and unfair to not allow people to change their legal documentation to reflect the reality about their bodies and their condition."

The Vital Records act requires that a physician (ie someone registered to practice in the USA) certifies that the operation has been performed. Not that they themselves have performed it. But the registry office only provides a form requiring the surgeon to attest to it, not a US physician. Moreover, they even require that the surgeon be registered in the USA at the time of the operation, and not at the time of attestation. Without such a form, they will not change the birth certificate, regardless of what the original law may say. They have a Policy.

So two people who both had the same procedures from the same overseas surgeon are of different sexes, depending on when the surgeon became registered to practice in the US:- as Dr Brassard of Canada did specifically to avoid this issue for his many patients from Illinois.

It's those who are transsexual who have a "serious mental disorder" according to the DSM-IV, not the regulatory authorities. Well, one of us does, that's for sure, because in my view, this situation is utterly bonkers. Inhuman and cruel too.