Supreme Court In Red State Rules Transgender Residents Cannot Be Blocked From Using Preferred Gender Identity On Identification Documents

The Montana Supreme Court ruled that state agencies cannot prohibit transgender residents from changing their government-identification documents to fit their preferred gender identity.

“Transgender discrimination is, by its very nature, sex discrimination,” Montana Supreme Court Justice Laurie McKinnon wrote on behalf of the majority, according to Courthouse News Service.

“Discrimination based on sex is expressly prohibited under Montana’s unique nondiscrimination clause,” McKinnon added.

However, the dissenting justices accused the majority of issuing a political decision.

“The majority today has blown through all of these prudential instructions to issue a political decision dressed up in constitutional garb,” Chief Justice Cory Swanson wrote in his dissent, according to the Daily Montanan.

“Now that we have spoken from the judicial mountaintop, where is the incentive toward continued public debate, mutual respect, and accommodation? Each side is in fact incentivized to stake out maximalist positions and then rush to the courthouse so the least democratic branch can settle political disputes better left to policy