A Republican push to bar transgender Missourians from changing the sex on their birth certificates was briefly debated Wednesday morning by a state Senate committee.
The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. Mike Cierpiot of Lee’s Summit, said birth certificates reflect “facts on the day you were born” and should be unchangeable except in cases of sex development disorders.
Cierpiot filed the same bill in 2023, but it was never debated by the full Senate. He did not file the bill last year.
The bill was inspired, he said, by a lawsuit in his district where a transgender student sued the Blue Springs School District in 2015 after being barred from locker rooms and multi-stall bathrooms. A jury awarded the student $4 million, but the case was appealed and is currently awaiting a Missouri Supreme Court opinion.
“The reason this (bill) is needed is because some courts are making decisions partly because of modified birth certificates,” Cierpiot said.
State Sen. Rick Brattin, a Harrisonville Republican, mentioned that some transgender Missourians have changed their gender marker on their driver’s license. The Department of Revenue recently rescinded that policy after pressure from lawmakers.
Cierpiot said he was less worried about driver’s licenses.
“A birth certificate is a historic document,” he said. “If someone wants to change things later in life, this is quiet on that.”
A Senate committee room was full of people waiting to testify on the bill, but the public hearing was cut short after 30 minutes with three speaking in favor and four able to speak in opposition before the committee chair moved to the next bill.
Sharon Dunski Vermont, a pediatrician from the St. Louis area, told committee members that the bill is dangerous for transgender people.
“People have been attacked, bullied and even killed because their documents don’t reflect who they see themselves to be,” she said.
Brattin asked Vermont about the Washington University Transgender Center, which was the subject of a whistleblower’s affidavit in 2023 and closed after state law made gender-affirming care illegal for minors.
Brattin criticized the center, calling treatments “detrimental to (children’s) health.”
Dunski Vermont, who worked there, said the allegations were untrue.
“I don’t tell you how to be a senator, and I would appreciate if you don’t tell me how to be a doctor,” she said, as Brattin interrupted.
Keith Rose, who is a legal advocate with nonprofit law firm Center for Growing Justice, said he has assisted people changing their birth certificates as part of his work.
He called birth certificates “living documents,” instead of historic.
“It is common sense that birth records should reflect your lived reality,” he said.
Few judges are willing to issue court orders to change birth certificates, Rose said, and it has grown more difficult in the past three years.
The committee did not take action on the bill Wednesday.
This story was originally published by the Missouri Independent.
