Lawsuit challenges Senate Bill on gender identification
The American Civil Liberties Union of Montana (ACLU), along with other Montanans, challenged Senate Bill 458 on Monday. The bill provides a common definition for the word "sex" in regard to a human and the Montana Code Annotated.
The complaint claims the bill's purpose is to discriminate against transgender and non-binary people, gender non-conforming individuals, and those with intersex condition. The complaint goes on to state the bill's vagueness violates the Montana constitution.
Senate Bill 458, which was signed by Govenor Gianforte on May 19, 2023, redefines that there are only two sexes being male and female, and a person's sex is based off their reproductive organs and capacity. The definition does "not regard individual's psychological, behavioral, social, chosen, or subjective experience of gender."
These definitions were amended into the Montana's Code Annotated, which includes those definitions being implemented into local government, elections, education, human rights and many more areas. The plaintiffs claim the Bill's definition is "regressive" and it writes individuals out of the constitution.
"The legislature seemed to be trying to adopt a quasi-medical definition of sex that actually, if you talk to any health care professional, is completely unworkable and is completely undefined to an ordinary Montanan," said Alex Rate, the Legal Director for the ACLU.
ACLU and the plaintiffs are also challenging that the bill violates the states "single subject" requirement as well as the Montana constitution's separation of powers for provisions. According to Rate, the courts, and not the legislature, are singularly empowered to interpret the provisions of Montana’s constitution.