News Item

FLORIDA QUIETLY CHANGES BIRTH CERTIFICATE POLICY

June 29, 2002

The Florida Office of Vital Statistics recently began notifying people whose requests for sex-change birth certificate corrections were previously denied of a new Department of Health policy. Effective immediately, the Office of Vital Statistics will amend the birth certificate on receipt of a letter from any licensed physician attesting to the fact that either sex change has been completed or that the original birth certificate was in error. A certified copy of a court order changing one's name is required, also, if the birth name is to be changed.

"It's departmental (Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services) policy," wrote an Office of Vital Statistics representative who wished to remain anonymous. "We are treating it as correcting an error on the original (birth certificate). That's the approach taken by about half of the states."

Dale Lynn Simms, an advocate for the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA), was ecstatic when she received notice of the policy change. "We have been working for years on this," she said. "It seems that education was the key component to success.

"Intersexed individuals without complete documentation as well as transsexuals [born in Florida] will both now receive corrected documents."

Florida's action reduces to three the number of states that refuse to change birth records to acknowledge changes from the gender recorded at birth: Ohio, Idaho, and Tennessee. While Texas law provides for birth certificate correction, some recent applicants have been rejected on the basis of the Littleton ruling, which affects a portion of the state. In the Littleton case, the 4th Texas Court of Appeals ruled that, absent legislative action, sex was determined by chromosomes and could not be changed.

Intersexed and postoperative transsexuals born in Florida can arrange for corrected birth certificates or obtain additional information by contacting the Office of Vital Statistics, Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, P.O. Box 210, Jacksonville, FL 32231-0042. (904) 359-6929 or 359-6931.