Idaho to Pay $321,000 Over Trans Birth Certificate Case
Lawmakers passed a law in 2020 barring gender marker changes on vital documents, in violation of a previous federal court ruling.
Idaho state officials have approved a payment of more than $321,000 in legal fees to transgender plaintiffs who successfully sued over the state’s refusal to allow them to change the gender marker on their birth certificates.
On August 16, the Idaho Board of Examiners — a body that consists of Governor Brad Little, Attorney General Lawrence Wasden, Secretary of State Lawerence Denney, and State Controller Brandon Woolf — authorized the payment of $321,224.50, plus accrued interest at the rate of 2.14%, as laid out in a court order following a federal judge’s ruling against the state, reports the Idaho Capital Sun.
In 2017, two transgender women, F.V. and Dani Martin, two transgender women who are native-born Idahoans, sued over the state’s refusal to allow them to change the sex on their birth certificate to match their gender identity.
In March 2018, Magistrate Judge Candy Dale, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho, ruled that the policy automatically rejecting applications for gender marker changes was discriminatory and unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Dale ordered the state to allow transgender individuals to amend their birth certificates if they request such a change and issued an injunction blocking the state from trying to enforce its policy.
Following Dale’s ruling, Republican lawmakers in Idaho, egged on by Little, repeatedly tried to undermine the ability of transgender individuals to change the gender markers on their birth certificates — despite having been fined $75,000 after losing the case.
Republicans began the process by first attempting to block minors from changing their gender markers through the regular rule-making process, but that rule was ultimately reversed on a technicality.
Lawmakers then introduced and passed a bill to restore the state’s previous policy in 2020. That law contained a provision only allowing gender marker changes within a year after the birth certificate was first issued based on alleged “factual” errors (such as a clerical error). Once the law went into effect, the state began enforcing the old policy as if nothing had happened, despite preemptive warnings from Dale not to defy her previous ruling.
The plaintiffs once again sued, and Dale issued another ruling striking down the law on the grounds that it violated the permanent injunction she had previously issued. The plaintiffs, who were represented by the LGBTQ legal advocacy firm Lambda Legal, requested that the state pay their legal fees and attorneys’ fees, in the amount of $447,783. In June, Dale ordered the state to pay the plaintiffs’ legal fees, but reduced the fees to $321,224.50.
The state’s Board of Examiners typically sends such bills to the Constitutional Defense Council, comprised of the governor, attorney general and leaders of the House and Senate. The council controls a constitutional defense fund that pays the winning side’s legal fees when Idaho loses court cases. Since its inception in 1995, the fund has paid out more than $3 million in taxpayer money to pay legal fees after losing court cases — with the bulk of those losses occurring in the last eight years, according to Boise Public Radio.
If they choose not to send the bill to the Constitutional Defense Council, lawmakers in the House and Senate could also choose to appropriate the money from another source to pay the legal fees.
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