By JoAnn Snoderly, WV News
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A federal lawsuit filed Thursday asks a court to declare policies denying transgender individuals the ability to change their gender markers on West Virginia birth certificates unconstitutional.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of West Virginia and the Harvard Law School LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic filed the suit against Department of Health and Human Resources officials on behalf of Xavier Hersom and an anonymous plaintiff, both transgender men born in West Virginia.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.
The suit stems from a 2020 ruling by the West Virginia Supreme Court that said circuit judges could no longer issue court orders telling the DHHR to change birth certificate gender markers of transgender individuals born in the state…