Here are two good reasons Gov. Brad Little should veto transgender birth certificate bill

Among the bills that Idaho Gov. Brad Little should veto is legislation making it illegal for transgender people to change gender markers on their Idaho birth certificates.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Julianne Young, R-Blackfoot, states that a birth certificate can be amended only within one year of its filing. After one year, it can be changed only via a court challenge “on the basis of fraud, duress, or material mistake of fact.”

It’s worth remarking that legislators feel it’s so important to stay in the Statehouse amid the coronavirus outbreak for bills like this that infringe on people’s personal constitutional rights.

Little should veto this bill on the grounds that it a veto simply is the right thing to do for all of Idaho’s citizens, including those who are transgender.

Just in case that’s not enough reason, he should also do it to spare Idaho taxpayers the expense of another losing court battle.

U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Candy W. Dale ruled in March 2018 that Idaho officials can no longer “automatically and categorically” reject transgender individuals’ applications to change the sex listed on their birth certificates.

Dale ruled in favor of two transgender Idaho women who claimed that the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare’s policy of automatic rejection violated their constitutional rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. A challenge has already been filed in Idaho federal court on Young’s bill.

Idaho’s losing legal battle to defend the state’s ban on same-sex marriage cost taxpayers roughly $715,000, making it one of the more expensive failed cases compared with similar losses in nearby states.

If Little needs political cover, he can simply state that Idaho can’t afford to go through another losing court battle.

Idaho has a constitutional defense fund it uses to pay legal costs for the state to file lawsuits or defend Idaho from lawsuits. The taxpayer-funded account was created in 1995. It hasn’t funded a winning case since 1996.

The fund’s balance is $1.3 million.

In its legal analysis of the transgender birth certificate bill, which was passed in defiance of a federal court order, the attorney general’s office indicated it could cost up to $1 million to defend that bill court.

So while we’re all bracing for a massive and possibly unprecedented downturn in the economy, this is not what we should be spending taxpayer dollars on.

Little should also veto it because the bill attempts to ignore that transgender residents even exist, seeking to cancel out their ability to live as the gender with which they identify.

Rep. Linda Wright Hartgen, R-Twin Falls, who voted against the bill in the House, gets it.

“I listened to many people give their stories in committee, for hours, on why they needed their own stats to match their gender marker. Their stories were very compelling to me,” Hartgen said. “My job here is to protect all of the people in my district and the state of Idaho, not just those who look like me.”

We are encouraged that Hartgen was moved by the testimony. Too often in the legislative session we see people give hour after hour of testimony only to have committee members vote against all of the testimony that was presented. Listening to the stories from transgender residents and the parents of transgender children, it was difficult to walk away from those hearings unmoved.

Recognizing that transgender people exist, getting to know them and acknowledging that they’re simply trying to achieve their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is key to crafting good legislation — or throwing away bad legislation.

“There are probably a lot of people in that legislative session who have never sat down and had a meaningful conversation with a trans person,” Chris Mosier, a Nike-sponsored transgender male athlete, told the Idaho Statesman editorial board this month. “And it’s that lack of education, that lack of understanding about what it actually means to be transgender, that is causing these problems.”

Mosier, the first known transgender athlete to represent the United States in international competition and the first transgender athlete to qualify for the Olympic Trials in a category different from their sex assigned at birth, spoke as well about the dangers of Young’s legislation.

“For me, I traveled 120 trips last year and was at the airport almost every week,” he said. “And for me to show up and have ... an ID with a gender marker that didn’t match who I am could trigger some real hardships and discrimination and worse. It is incredibly important for people to be able to be recognized as the people that they know that they are. And we know that a lot of places rely heavily on these documents … and it’s really important for trans people to have those documents be able to accurately reflect and represent who they are.”

Gov. Little: Do the right thing, for your transgender constituents and for the taxpayers.