Puerto Rico to allow birth certificates to reflect gender identity News
Puerto Rico to allow birth certificates to reflect gender identity

Lambda Legal [advocacy website] announced on Wednesday that Puerto Rico will modify current policies to allow transgender people to change their gender on identification cards following a federal court order [text, PDF].

In the order, the court stated that “the forced disclosure of plaintiffs’ transgender status violates their fundamental right to informational privacy.”
Lambda Legal filed the case in April 2017 against Governor Ricardo Ricardo Rosselló [official website], Secretary of the Department of Health Rafael Rodriguez-Mercado and Director of the Division of Demographic Registry and Vital Statistics Llovet Diaz.

Lambda Legal argued [case materials] that Puerto Rico’s laws were inconsistent with 46 other states’ laws and inconsistent with Puerto Rico’s policy of allowing people to change their gender on other identification forms. Additionally, they deemed the denial of modifying gender on birth certificates to be a violation of due process and equal protection.

The court will issue further instructions on how to proceed.