Lawsuit Filed Over Wisconsin’s Trans Birth Certificate Law

The LGBT Pride flag waves in the wind on the first day of Pride month Monday, June 1, 2026, at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, Wis. Angela Major/WPR

A Wisconsin-born veteran is suing the state over a law that restricts when transgender people can change the sex on their birth certificates.

Under a state law dating back to 1985, a trans or intersex person can petition a local circuit court judge to change that sex designation. But the law says they first must undergo a “surgical sex-change procedure.”

That law is hazy about exactly what counts as that type of procedure, according to Jade Hall, an attorney who helped bring the suit through the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin.

“Some judges think that only top or bottom surgery is what counts,” Hall said. “Some judges are OK with just hormone replacement therapy, and there are judges who think anything in between.”

Not all transgender people undergo surgical interventions, and Hall says those decisions are deeply personal.

“A lot of the different surgical procedures that could be counted are extremely invasive and … could be contraindicated for a specific person,” Hall said. “But the larger issue really is people should just be believed when they say who they are.”

Hall says trans people can end up being outed and may face discrimination when the sex on their birth certificate doesn’t match their appearance.

And, she says, if the sex on someone’s birth certificate doesn’t match the sex on other official documents like their driver’s license or passport, it can create problems when crossing borders, applying for government jobs or creating a will.

“Being able to to fully have all of your paperwork match isn’t just something that a person wants,” Hall said. “It’s something that they need in order for them to live the same life as someone who is cisgender.”

The ACLU helped bring the lawsuit on behalf of the organization Trans Law Help Wisconsin and Jaida Birch McGuire, a U.S. Coast Guard veteran who was born in Oshkosh.

According to the lawsuit, McGuire started transitioning to female in 2021 and has undergone hormone replacement therapy. Previously, the Coast Guard gave her permission to start wearing female uniforms, and she got a diagnosis of gender dysphoria through the military’s health care plan, which allowed her to start getting gender affirming care, the lawsuit says.

The suit says she was forced to retire from the Coast Guard in 2025, after President Donald Trump signed an executive order prohibiting transgender and other gender-nonconforming people from serving openly in the military.

McGuire had been pursuing gender-affirming surgeries. But the suit says she could no longer afford them after the Trump administration stopped covering those procedures for military members.

“Jaida was one week away from receiving a surgery date for her facial feminization surgeries when the ban was announced,” the lawsuit says. “When it became clear that the costs of the surgical procedures would no longer be covered through her military-provided health care, the surgeries were cancelled, along with Jaida’s plans for additional procedures.”

The lawsuit is assigned to Judge Stephen Ehlke in Dane County Circuit Court. It argues that Wisconsin’s restrictions violate equal protection provisions in the state constitution.

In addition to discriminating against trans people, the ACLU argues that Wisconsin’s law discriminates against intersex people. That includes people who are born with ambiguous genitalia, as well as people who are born with chromosomal or hormonal differences that don’t neatly fit into biological definitions of male versus female.

The complaint names Gov. Tony Evers and Wisconsin Department of Health Services Secretary Kirsten Johnson as defendants. The governor’s office declined to comment on the pending litigation.

Wisconsin-born veteran sues over law that restricts when trans people can change the sex on their birth certificates was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.