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Hersom v. Crouch

Location: West Virginia
Status: Closed
Last Update: May 16, 2023

What's at Stake

Xavier Hersom applied for and was denied a gender marker change on his birth certificate. He said DHHR’s policy has created yet another layer of difficulty for him as a transgender person living in West Virginia. The ACLU, the ACLU of West Virginia, and the Harvard Law School LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic filed a federal lawsuit asking a court to declare West Virginia’s birth certificate policies relating to transgender people unconstitutional on behalf of Hersom and an another anonymous plaintiff.

In 2020, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals ruled circuit judges could no longer issue court orders telling the state Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) to correct gender markers on birth certificates for transgender West Virginians. This ruling has led to DHHR unfairly refusing to change gender markers for transgender West Virginians.

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