Update March 12, 2020: The House voted to pass HB1577.

January 30, 2020: Staff Attorney Chris Erchull delivered testimony in support of HB1577, “An Act Relative to Initiating Amendments and Corrections to Birth Records.”

“In January of 2015, the Division of Motor Vehicles amended its regulations to implement a process by which people can change the gender designation on their drivers’ licenses or nondrivers’ identification cards. This update to the regulations, which brought New Hampshire in line with the current medical understanding of gender transition and with common trends in identification documents, allowed transgender individuals a way to obtain correct identification after transitioning without the need for a court order. In January of 2020, the DMV began to offer people who identify as neither male nor female to option to obtain a driver’s license or state ID card with “X” as the gender marker, an option currently available to residents in twelve other states and two cities.

“As a result of these recent updates, many New Hampshire residents are, for the first time, in possession of a driver’s license that accurately reflects their authentic gender identity. At the same time, because the policy around birth records has not been updated, many of those same residents are forced to have inconsistent documents. This inconsistency is not only impractical (for administrative reasons, for law enforcement, etc.), it is also potentially harmful.”

You can read the full testimony here.