Oklahoma Supreme Court Rules State Law Never Allowed Birth Certificate Sex Marker Changes for Transgender People
The Oklahoma Supreme Court has ruled that state statutes prohibit amending sex designations on birth certificates and have never permitted such changes based on gender identity. The 6–3 decision was issued in the case Fowler v. Stitt in response to certified questions from a federal appellate court, as reported by PinkNews.
The legal challenge was brought by three transgender Oklahoma residents—Rowan Fowler, Allister Hall, and Carter Ray—with legal representation from the civil rights organization Lambda Legal. The plaintiffs challenged actions by Republican Governor Kevin Stitt and state health officials. In 2021, the governor issued an executive order directing the Oklahoma State Department of Health to stop amending sex designations after a prior legal settlement had permitted a nonbinary “X” marker. The Oklahoma Legislature subsequently codified this restriction in 2022 and 2026, mandating that birth certificates reflect exclusively the biological sex identified at birth (male or female). A federal district court originally dismissed the lawsuit, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reinstated the equal protection claim and asked the state high court to clarify state law.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Dustin Rowe reasoned that Oklahoma’s vital statistics statutes provide an exhaustive list of permissible amendments, such as name corrections or establishing paternity. Applying the interpretive canon expressio unius est exclusio alterius (“the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another”), the court concluded that the absence of statutory authorization for sex marker changes constitutes a prohibition. The court thus held unlawful the administrative practice in place since approximately 2007, under which transgender individuals had obtained court orders directing amendments to their vital records.
Governor Kevin Stitt welcomed the ruling, stating: “In 2021, I held the line and made it clear that Oklahoma birth certificates should reflect a person’s biological sex at birth. This deserved a unanimous outcome by our Oklahoma Supreme Court.” Conversely, attorneys from Lambda Legal and civil rights advocates noted that the court’s strict construction reaches far beyond transgender applicants: it prevents cisgender citizens from correcting typographical and clerical errors on their birth certificates and affects intersex individuals identified after infancy. In a dissenting opinion joined by two other justices, Justice Douglas Combs argued that the state court should have declined to answer the certified questions, leaving statutory interpretation to the federal judiciary.
Lambda Legal is the oldest national legal organization in the United States, founded in 1973, dedicated to achieving the full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people, and individuals living with HIV through impact litigation.
The case now returns to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, which will determine whether Oklahoma’s categorical ban violates the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Previously, Uránia reported on administrative restrictions on gender marker changes on state-issued identification in Ohio, where authorities similarly mandated strict alignment with primary birth records.
