Today in Supreme Court History: October 25, 1795

10/25/1795: Justice John Blair resigns from the Supreme Court.

Justice John Blair

Comments

[A Japanese Student]

GID Act Sterilization Requirement Case (Grand Bench, decided October 25, 2023) - Article 3(1)(iv) of Act 2003-111, a provision requiring those seeking gender marker changes to be sterilized, is unconstitutional.

Plaintiff, a transgender woman, sought to change the gender marker on family registry under the Act without having a surgery first. The lower courts, citing 2019 decision of SCOJ upholding the provision, rejected the petition; the Supreme Court took this case to the Grand Bench, overruled the precedent, and invalidated the provision. A separate provision requires the person's genital appearance to be similar to those of the new gender; the Court did not rule on the constitutionality of this provision, instead remanding to the court below. (This provision mostly affects transgender woman; note that lower courts, in several cases, held this to be also invalid.) The plaintiff prevailed in the lower court and is now living, both socially and legally, as a woman.

Unanimous decision - something you'll probably never see in the United States.

[taqmcg]

Were there a law in the US requiring sterilization before one could change change the nominal sex in a government record, I feel confident that it would be declared unconstitutional unanimously: despite the progressive precedent of Buck vs Bell. But I doubt the occasion will arise.

[A Japanese Student]

But see Corbitt v. Taylor, case 21-10486 (11th Cir. 2024).

[Lee Moore]

He should have sued the artist for that portrait.