Transgender Tennesseans want state's refusal to amend birth certificates declared unconstitutional

The fate of a decades-old Tennessee policy that does not allow transgender people to change the sex designation on their birth certificates is in the hands of a federal appeals court. A group of four transgender women born in Tennessee wants the policy declared unconstitutional. A federal judge dismissed their case last year. On Thursday, they asked a panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn that ruling. Their attorney argues that a birth certificate is a “critical and foundational” identity document. Attorneys for the state say there is nothing in the Constitution that requires them to amend birth certificates to include gender identity.