The state health department is again restricting transgender Montanans from updating the gender markers on their birth certificates.

The state health department originally banned people from amending their birth certificates to match new gender identities in 2022, but a district court judge struck down that policy.

Now, after Republicans passed a new law in 2023, the state health department said it must reinstate the ban. The new state law defines sex as binary – male or female – eliminating legal recognition of transgender, nonbinary, two-spirit and intersex Montanans.

Two lawsuits have been filed challenging the law defining sex as binary.