Legislation being introduced Thursday would require court records related to the gender transitions of transgender and nonbinary adults in California be sealed in order to protect their privacy. If enacted into law, the bill would apply retroactively to make confidential all records relating to previous name, gender, and/or sex change petitions held by state courts.
Authored by gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), the bill would extend the same privacy protections trans and nonbinary youth have to people over the age of 18. In 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Assembly Bill 223 by gay Assemblymember Christopher Ward (D-San Diego) that requires any court petition for a change of gender and sex identifier by a minor to be kept confidential.
"Making this personal identifying information public after someone transitions — including a person's dead name, as well as the basic fact that they're trans or nonbinary — pointlessly exposes trans and nonbinary Californians to harassment and potential violence," stated Wiener. "Unfortunately, right-wing groups and individuals have used publicly available personal information to harass trans people in California and across the nation."
Over the years, state lawmakers have passed bills to make it easier for Californians to update their name and gender on official documents, as well as make the process safer in terms of their privacy. A 2013 law authored by lesbian former state legislator Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), Assembly Bill 1121, ended the requirement that transgender people had to publish paid notices of their intended name change in a local newspaper for four weeks.
Yet, the gender transition court records of transgender and nonbinary adults in the Golden State are publicly accessible. It can lead to the names they were given at birth and other personal information being disclosed, and in severe circumstances, being harassed online.
"When I learned I was unable to change my name in California without being forcibly outed online and exposed to harassment I was appalled," stated Hazel Williams, a transgender San Francisco homeless rights advocate known for obtaining public records of city officials who worked with Wiener on the bill. "I'm proud to help rally community members and advocacy organizations to fix this. There are 220,000 transgender and nonbinary adults in California. All of us deserve privacy and safety and this legislation is a vital step in that direction."
According to Wiener's office, a 2017 Oregon law allowed transgender people to seal court records related to their transition, while New York leaders enacted a law in 2021 that sealed such documents for transgender people who could show risk of violence or intimidation. In 2023, Washington state passed a law that automatically seals the relevant court records after a judge approves the initial name and gender change, noted Wiener's office in a news release about his bill shared with the Bay Area Reporter on Wednesday under embargo.
Last year, the 5th District Court of Appeal in Fresno ruled that a transgender woman in Stanislaus County had the right to demand her name change and gender transition court records be fully sealed. Identified solely as M.T., she had started the process at age 19 and won judicial sign off in 2018.
But, as she argued in her petition to the courts to have her documents be sealed, M.T. had been outed as transgender on social media, was being harassed by anonymous media users and had closed down all of her accounts, as the San Francisco Chronicle had noted in its coverage of the appellate court ruling. It convinced the three-judge appeals court panel that her right to privacy enshrined in the state constitution had been violated.
"Whether a transgender person's gender identity conforms with their assigned sex at birth is intimate personal information entitled to protection under the right to privacy," Justice Kathleen Meehan wrote in the panel's unanimous decision, as the Chronicle reported last October.
Despite the court ruling, individual judges retain the authority to decide if someone's records should be sealed "on a case-by-case basis," noted Wiener's office. A fact sheet about the bill contends it is necessary so that such records are automatically sealed and transgender individuals are not "not needlessly exposed to harassment and violations of privacy."
Wiener's Senate Bill 59 is officially known as the Transgender Privacy Act. Already signed on as co-sponsors are statewide LGBTQ civil rights organization Equality California, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, TransFamily Support Services, Trans Youth Liberation, and the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club of San Francisco.
The bill comes as the LGBTQ community braces for an assault on its rights expected to be waged by President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress. Transgender rights are already in the crosshairs of the conservative leaders, with Trump pledging to roll back a number of rights for gender-nonconforming individuals as soon as he is sworn into office on January 20.
"As Trump and his cronies continue their cynical incitements of violence against transgender people, it's critical that we fight back with progressive protections at the state level," stated Syd Simpson, co-chair of the Milk club's Transgender Caucus. "It's really scary to know that there are people out there who want to hurt you and that your personal information is just sitting there for them to exploit. The right to privacy and the right to be safe are precious to our community, and we've got to fight for them."
Wiener also alluded to the expected actions to be taken by the incoming Trump administration as for why his legislation is needed.
"The incoming Trump administration will only embolden abusive right-wing extremists, and it is up to states like California to defend LGBTQ and other targeted communities amid a rising swell of hate," argued Wiener.
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