[JURIST] The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and ACLU of Michigan [advocacy websites] on Thursday filed a federal lawsuit [complaint, PDF; press release] on behalf of six Michigan transgender individuals against Secretary of State Ruth Johnson [official website] challenging a state policy that they claim makes it nearly impossible for transgender individuals to change the gender recorded on their driver licenses and other forms of identification. The lawsuit states that the policy represents a refusal by the state to accept such situations of gender identity, and seeks a court order declaring the policy unconstitutional. The policy says that the state cannot change a person’s gender on their driver’s license or state identification unless that person produces an amended birth certificate showing the correct gender. However, the process of obtaining such an amended birth certificate can be very difficult or sometimes impossible for some individuals. Jay Kaplan, staff attorney for the ACLU of Michigan LGBT Project [official website] stated, “By refusing to provide transgender people with identity documents that match their correct gender identity, the state makes it unimaginably difficult for them to navigate their everyday lives.”

Transgender rights are currently hotly contested legal issue. In April US District Judge Jon Tigar for the Northern District of California ordered [JURIST report] the California Department of Corrections to grant a transgender inmate’s sex reassignment surgery. In March a transgender inmate from Massachusetts filed a petition [JURIST report] for certiorari to the Supreme Court, asking to overturn a ruling that denied her sex reassignment surgery.