Oklahoma House votes to block birth certificate changes for transgender people & to ban Pride flags

The Oklahoma House took a step toward ending any changes to gender markers on birth certificates. The Republican-backed bill passed the same day lawmakers also voted to bar government institutions from flying Pride flags or endorsing Pride month.

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The chamber voted 73-18 for the change in birth certificate law, with only Democratic Rep. Jason Lowe joining all Republicans to pass a bill that critics say undermines transgender identities. Should the bill be signed into law, it would prohibit any amendment to the sex assigned at birth listed on a birth certificate. State law already prohibited designations of nonbinary or “x” on state documents.

“A birth certificate is used for many different things, and having that be accurate, that something that the state maintains, that’s where the compelling interest comes in on this,” said Oklahoma state Rep. Kevin West, the Republican sponsor of HB 1225, according to Oklahoma City ABC affiliate KOCO.

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He claimed that the bill doesn’t prohibit someone from identifying as a gender different from that listed on the birth certificate, but it maintains the sanctity of the state record. While the bill still allows minor corrections to birth certificates within a year of a child's birth, including name changes, no changes to the sex designation will be allowed for any reason.

The House also approved the bill, also filed by West, that restricts any support for Pride on a 74-17.

“I think it would be difficult enough for any single one of these to be on an agenda, but to see these sort of stacked throughout the day and just watch this harm move through as if it is business as usual — which I guess to a certain extent it is at this point,” said Nicole McAfee, executive director of Freedom Oklahoma, to the Oklahoma Voice. “I think it is tiring and is definitely pushing a lot of folks towards feelings of despair in this moment.”

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Both measures now head to the Oklahoma Senate. Democrats said the bills represented an attack on LGBTQ+ Oklahomans.

“I’m sick of it,” said nonbinary Rep. Michelle McCane, a Democrat, as reported by the Voice. “I’m a human being, regardless of who I am attracted to, of who I’m in a relationship with, of what my gender identity is, and I deserve, just like everyone else, to also be able to celebrate myself.”