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PNS - Thursday, April 25, 2024 - The urban-rural death divide is widening for working-age Americans, many home internet connections established for rural students during COVID have been broken, and a new federal rule aims to put the "public" back in public lands.
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PNS - Thursday, April 25, 2024 - SCOTUS skeptical that state abortion bans conflict with federal health care law; Iowa advocates for immigrants push back on Texas-style deportation bill; new hearings, same arguments on both sides for ND pipeline project; clean-air activists to hold "die-in" Friday at LA City Hall.
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By Mark Moran - Producer-Editor, Contact - News
Big Sky Connection - Plaintiffs have filed a lawsuit challenging a state law that bans changing the sex on a person's birth certificate to something other than the way it's officially listed. Critics of the ban say people should be able to choose their own identities. Supporters say birth certificates contain vital information and need to be accurate for state records. Comments from Akilah (uh-KEE-luh) Deernose, executive director, Montana ACLU.
Click on the image above for the audio. It's estimated about 3,400 transgender people, age 18 and older, live in Montana, according to the UCLA School of Law. (Adobe Stock)
Mark Moran
April 24, 2024 - The Montana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has filed class-action lawsuit challenging a measure barring people from listing a gender on their birth certificate other than the one they were born with.
Montana lawmakers passed Senate Bill 280 in 2021, which requires a court order to change gender on a birth certificate. A state court issued an injunction against the measure but now the state health department has put a total ban on changes to sex designations on birth certificates.
Akilah Deernose, executive director of the ACLU of Montana, called the measure part of a "concerted and unrelenting attack" on the civil rights of people who identify as transgender.
"We've previously sued on the birth certificate issue," Deernose pointed out. "Once again, we're seeing the state implement laws and rules and policies that unfairly target transgender people."
On the other side, some people argued birth certificates contain vital statistics and should be based on the facts at the time of birth. The suit awaits action in state court.
Deernose noted beyond privacy rights, the birth certificate measure has the potential to force a person to declare themselves to be someone other than who they are, based on their declared identity.
"And who they know themselves to be," Deernose observed. "That puts them at risk of discrimination and also forces them to out themselves every time they share those identity documents."
The suit also challenges a motor vehicle department policy forbidding changing sex designations on driver's licenses.
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PNS - Wednesday, April 24, 2024 - The Senate moves forward with a foreign aid package. A North Carolina judge overturns an aged law penalizing released felons. And child protection groups call a Texas immigration policy traumatic for kids.
