CIVIL RIGHTS
Passport Refusal Denies Trans Man Equal Protection
Nevada federal district judge tells State Department no doctor’s certifi cation required
BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD
A federal district court in
Nevada has ruled the
State Department violated
the Fifth Amendment
equal protection rights of
Oliver Bruce Morris, a transgender
man, by refusing to issue him a
passport identifying him as male
unless he provided a doctor’s certifi
cation of clinical treatment for
gender transition.
In a November 23 ruling, Judge
Gloria M. Navarro, appointed to
the bench by President Barack
Obama, rejected another of Morris’
claim — that denying him the
passport violated his due process
rights.
Morris, who was identifi ed as female
at birth but has identifi ed as
male for several years, has health
insurance that covers his hormone
treatment — which he receives under
the care of a licensed practical
nurse — but doesn’t cover gender
confi rmation surgery. He is identifi
ed as male on his driver’s license,
and obtained a legal name change
from a Nevada court.
When he applied for a passport
➤ DAVID DINKINS, RIP, from p.3
alty. While few teenagers showed
symptoms due to what can be a
10-year incubation period of the
virus, many were getting infected.
In 1991, the Board of Education’s
AIDS Advisory Council — including
Raymond Jacobs of the Young
Adult Institute, Teri Lewis of the
AIDS & Adolescents Network, and
me from the Hetrick-Martin Institute,
among others — put forth a
comprehensive plan to the Board
and Chancellor Joseph Fernandez
for mandatory, explicit, age-appropriate
AIDS lessons in all grades
as well as free condom availability
in high schools. It became an explosive
battle in the culture wars,
but Dinkins prevailed on his two
appointees to the Board to join
with those from the Bronx and
Manhattan to enact the proposal
by a 4-3 vote. Dinkins was willing
OLIVER BRUCE MORRIS
Oliver Bruce Morris prevailed in his challenge
to the State Department’s denial of a passport
identifying him as male.
in October 2018, he checked the
male box and provided, as documentation,
his driver’s license, his
original birth certifi cate, which
indicates his sex as female, and
the court record of his legal name
change.
to expend political capital to save
lives.
Dinkins’ successor, Giuliani,
ran on a platform of retrenchment
on AIDS issues and when he took
offi ce banned condom lessons in
classrooms.
There was a similar confl ict
over inclusion of LGBTQ issues
in school curricula in the “Children
of the Rainbow” controversy
where, again, Dinkins stood with
the community as others distorted
it for political gain.
But Dinkins’ fi nest hour was
standing with the Irish Lesbian
and Gay Organization (ILGO), a
group of mostly Irish LGBTQ immigrants,
in their bid to march in
New York’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade
on Fifth Avenue in 1991. At
fi rst ILGO was told no, there was
a waiting list to get into the city’s
oldest parade because the city put
a limit on its duration. Dinkins offered
Apparently stymied by the inconsistency
between his driver’s
license and his birth certifi cate
— and not making the connection
about his name change — State
Department bureaucrats sent Morris
a letter asking him to “verify
his sex,” accord to Judge Navarro’s
opinion.
“In order to issue you a passport
card refl ecting a sex different
from the one on some or all of
your citizenship and/or identity
evidence, please send us a signed
original statement on offi ce letterhead
from your attending medical
physician… stating that you have
had appropriate clinical treatment
for transition to the new sex,” the
State Department letter read.
Morris, however, is not under a
physician’s care, which would not
be covered by his health insurance
for the transition care he receives.
A legal services attorney replied
to the State Department on his
behalf, “explaining he would not
provide the requested certifi cation
because he could not afford gender
transition treatment, and the
requirement violated his constitutional
rights,” according to Navarro’s
to extend the march if that
meant ILGO could participate but
then the parade committee showed
its true colors: they were not going
to let a gay Irish group into what
they now called a Catholic parade.
A compromise was reached in
which the more liberal Manhattan
Division 7 of the Ancient Order
of Hibernians where Dinkins had
allies would let ILGO march with
them without their banner and
Dinkins would march in solidarity
with their contingent rather than
at the mayor’s usual place of honor
toward the front. The contingent
was met with vitriolic hatred from
the sidelines — many shouting
“faggots” and “AIDS!” — and a
beer can thrown at Dinkins barely
missed him.
“Every time I heard them boo if
anything it strengthened my resolve
and convinced me this was
the right thing to do,” he said at the
opinion.
When the State Department, in
turn, denied Morris’ application,
Nevada Legal Services attorneys
Christena Georgas-Burns and David
A. Olshan fi led suit on his behalf.
Morris’ Fifth Amendment due
process claim asserted that he
has a constitutional right to refuse
medical treatment for gender transition.
His equal protection claim
argued that because cisgender
people are not required to provide
a physician’s verifi cation of their
sex to get a proper passport, such
a requirement cannot be imposed
on transgender people.
The court rejected Morris’s due
process claim, reasoning that the
government is not requiring Morris
to submit to surgical treatment
in order to get a passport since it
would happily issue him a passport
with a female sex designation.
That, of course, is not what Morris
is seeking, and a passport identifying
him as female but with his
current picture and a male name
would surely lead to problems as
➤ TRANS MAN’S PASSPORT, continued on p.9
time. “Most people in our town are
good people.”
St Patrick’s Day Parade, NYC
1991-1992 from Lisa Guido on Vimeo.
Dinkins then wrote a stirring oped
in The New York Times, “Keep
Marching for Equality,” comparing
his experience to what he went
through marching for Civil Rights
in the South in the early 1960s.
“It is strange,” the mayor wrote,
“that what is now my most vivid experience
of mob hatred came not in
the South but in New York — and
was directed against me, not because
I was defending the rights of
African Americans but of gay and
lesbian Americans. Yet, the hostility
I saw was not unfamiliar. It was
the same anger that led a bus driver
to tell me back in 1945, when I
was en route to North Carolina in
➤ DAVID DINKINS, RIP, continued on p.9
December 3- December 16, 2 8 020 | GayCityNews.com
/GayCityNews.com
