May 27, 2015

This summer, Hawaii will become the next state to advance equality for the transgender community.

During Hawaii's 2015 legislative session, Federation member Equality Hawaii strongly advocated for HB 631, the transgender birth certificate bill.

The organization worked with the local transgender community and the National Center for Transgender Equality to craft the bill’s language, and mobilized support for the bill throughout the legislative session. The group's hard work paid off, when earlier this month the bill passed without any kind of court order provision.

Equality Hawaii co-chair Gigi Lee shared with us that:

"Once signed into law by the Governor (which we expect), transgender individuals born in Hawaii will be able to change the sex designation marker on their birth certificates without the current outdated 'sex change operation' requirement, and through a physician affidavit-only process."  

The law will go into effect July 1, 2015.

This is a great step forward for the transgender community in Hawaii, and we applaud the work of EQHI and NCTE.