 So it is Tuesday, March 15th, March. It is the Senate government operations and we have, we are here. And Senator Ron Hinsdale is with us in spirit and kind of as an apparition up there is that the appropriate word, apparition hologram hologram. Yeah. Thank you. And so, I will, you're bigger than life. Look at your life. You are you're about three times the size you are when you're in the committee because you're in the full screen. So what we're going to do is we're going to start with age 628, which is an act relating to amending a birth certificate to reflect gender identity. We have Tucker, who is going to do a walkthrough of the bill itself, but I'd like to defer to Representative Taylor small, who is both the reporter and the sponsor of the bill and to, to give us some context and why this is important. So I don't know that I'm Jenette White. I don't know if you know all of us, but I'm Jenette White from Wyndham County, Wyndham District. I know you. We're all from the Ruffland District. Allison Parks and Windsor District. Okay, great. Thank you. And Gail, you know Gail. Great. And that's Senator Ron Hinsdale up there from Chittenden, who I'm sure you know, since you're from Chittenden. This is the one I first went really out to them Taylor. It's a wedding. Oh, okay. All right. Well, there you are. Okay, so do you want to give us some context for this. Absolutely. And thank you so much for having me here today. I'm going to go back to Taylor small for the record. And age six 28 actually came from a constituent request, a resident of Vermont who moved to Oregon, and was looking to amend their passport to have a gender X marker. And in the process, they realized that they actually need to amend their birth certificate to have a same gender marker on there to be able to move through the federal process. And when they made the Department of Health, they said, we actually don't have rules in place to be able to do this. And then when they started to do the rulemaking process on adding a gender X marker, they realized that if they added gender X marker through rules, that it would create this inequity in the system where someone had a binary transition of M to F male to female, or male birth certificate. It's a more cumbersome process with proving medical interventions and having letters and going before the court to be able to have that change be made. Along of course with a fee that comes along with that, but that it would be a simple attestation process for a gender X marker. In collaboration with the legislative council legal advisor for the Department of Health. We worked in giving that rulemaking authority to the department to be able to make sure that there weren't inequities in the system and that it was the same process to move to a gender X marker, as it would be for a binary transition as well. So if you look at the bill itself. As you all know very well, our legislative intent and purpose is really important when it comes to the rulemaking process. And so looking at making this a simple and equitable system through means of self attestation as the main piece in the first part. So what I'll bring your attention to our one recognizing that the rulemaking process that we're looking to have in place is that simple attestation process with consideration for a third gender X marker. We're not limiting the department by any means of making a specific ask that there are at least three gender markers that are available for birth certificates. And also we give them the opportunity to add gender pronouns. It's not something that we are asking the department to do but are giving them the leeway to do so if they see it as important. The other piece addresses the emergency rulemaking authority, really recognizing that once the statute is removed, there will be no processes in place for someone to be able to amend their birth certificate. So the emergency rulemaking authority so that they're able to put these new rules in place for the simple attestation process. But as a reminder, in the background as the emergency rules are in place, the full rulemaking process is still happening, and will happen with both public participation and consideration from Altar. Okay, the legislative committee and the straight up rules. And really the whole peer is making it easier for trans and non-binary folks here in the state of Vermont to be able to amend their birth certificate. I think a really powerful piece of testimony that we received was one from the Department of Health recognizing that when we made the change for drivers licenses to be able to have a simple process to use a gender X marker. We now have about 2,000 Vermonters who have now made the switch on their driver's license without any kind of outreach campaign. About 2,000 Vermonters have moved to a gender X marker on their license. One piece was hearing from youth from outright Vermont who really said that identity validation is like saving and being able to have their identity validated on vital records meant the world to them to have it in place. And that is really my testimony on age 628 and open to any questions that you may have. Yeah, I do. I don't know how their committee members do that. I hate really do hate to show my ignorance here, but I'm going to. You know that I've done that in the past, haven't I. Yes, Taylor was part of was with me when I did that. But anyway, for every day. Sorry. So the three identity would be M F X. Yeah, is that what it would be so anybody who doesn't want to identify as either male or female would identify as X but people would have the choice of any of the three, how they did that. And consistent with again what we've done with drivers licenses here in the state of Vermont, as well as we are not the only state to put such a marker in place. So we'd be joining about, I believe I can fact check myself afterwards about 24 will 23 states and DC that have moved to a gender X marker as that non binary option. So X doesn't stand for anything except I don't want to be identified as male or female. Okay, all right, I just don't want to be stupid here but I do want to understand your question. You're never stupid. That is a good question. I mean, yes. So, I think this is great but I'm going to put on my genealogist hat and my history and my date longitudinal study have all those hats history longitudinal studies. And accuracy in data. This immense it doesn't change the original birth of a person for tracking over time and for research and for genealogy. I mean, this doesn't change. This doesn't. This actually does to a birth certificate because I will, I have to be honest, I will have a curious and little challenge by the idea that you would actually change the sex you were born, because I think that's important, historically, and from a data point of view to keep collecting. That was a great question for the Department of Health, but to my knowledge, it is an amended birth certificate but would be the only one accessible to the public without an amendment addition on there. The person themselves and their family members would be able to access the prior unamended birth certificate, but for the general public as we included here in the bill would not fall under the public records. So that amended does not mean the original document and I think Tucker has an answer over there. I'm seeing chopping it because that that is really a major concern so I'm happy. I'm happy to switch seats if you would like that answer from legislative council. Let's see if there are other questions. We're talking about the same lines. We've talked about changing to in person to say ever X. Is there never a possibility that somebody might want to change from F to M or F to F. Yes. And so that was the reason why we did this process instead of just allowing rulemaking to add the gender X marker. It's making it a simplified self attestation process for any of those transitions so M to F, M to X, F to X, et cetera. So I don't really understand. I mean I understand rulemaking but talking a little bit more about what you just said about how you're making the process simpler now instead of going to all the rulemaking first that kind of thing. That's a valid question. So this statute that is being removed currently allows for that binary transition of M to F and F to M. And so what we are doing is allowing that addition of the gender X marker. We are also making it a simpler process for that transition from male to female or female to male on a birth certificate. So I know it's a cumbersome process that involves medical documents that involves going to the courts and paying a court fee, as well as that additional letter from a psychologist I believe. And this would take a lot just like saying I want to do it. That would be determined in the rulemaking process but yes. So we don't we don't actually have the rules yet for how it would be implemented and that would be that as part of the expedited rulemaking process. Correct, which involves public comment as well. Any more questions. So I'm just curious that other states that have done this I assume several other states have done this where we sort of in that trajectory of I will check these numbers but I believe it is about 13 other states that have moved to a process that allows for a simple attestation process for changes. When we were able to do it today for a process and I didn't know they did that I'm just not aware of that. They did that through rules. Yeah, and they did it a while. We did do it a while ago. Yes. So we, we did this. A few years ago, as I remember, but what we must have done was just the ability to change from M to F or F to M. Right. We didn't have that third option on there and it was cumbersome. We, we, I mean, we, because I remember addressing this issue, but we didn't address it fully at that time. And our understanding of gender has really changed a lot I would say even in the past 10 years. Right. And so I think we thought we were doing what we needed to do, but as it turns out, we weren't. But we, I mean, we did what we needed to at that time, but now, yeah, you're right. Yes. So Ron, you still have any questions. Well, I just didn't know if, if representative small was going to stay through Tucker's more formal walkthrough, but I just want to thank representative small for bringing this forward and I feel like it's a change we can make quickly and just look forward to passing the bill. I think that that is up to you, Taylor, whether you want to stay or I don't know what committee, I can't remember what committee you're on, but you're on human services. I would be happy to stay through Tucker's walkthrough. Okay. Yeah. And I just want to say this, you know, Jeanette referred to this earlier, but I'm so proud because Chris has been bringing up this issue Chris pray for a long time in the Senate so I'm really proud of you know that we do have a senator who's been working on this for a long time and we've touched on it but we haven't. It's great the House act at first. Well, we backed off I don't remember what number it was here, but I did tell 273 there it is right there is 273, and he got it in right in the make of time and I, and then I said, we're going to just, we'll take the bill when it comes from the House. So, thank you. Thank you. All right, good afternoon everyone. You were someplace warm and sunny. Yes, Massachusetts. I, my skin tone changed from here to here is I was, I spent a long time running with a buff. So I'm just on some more. Well, yeah, you have in front of you age 628 representative small did an absolutely excellent job of giving you the high level overview. There's not going to be a lot of mechanics that will have to work through is part of the walk through some brief background and history here under the current statutory process. I personally petition the probate court to change the sex that is recorded on their birth certificate, the work that this committee and the House Government Operations Committee did three or four years ago on the vital record system was to add some of avenues for change in sex on a birth certificate and to change the requirement that a birth certificate be stamped as amended when those changes were made. Another change that came as a result of the updates the vital record system was to alter access to these records and that gets some of the questions of Senator Clarkson. When any person in the world could request an official copy of a remanders birth certificate, and could then just have a verified copy of Tucker Anderson's birth certificate. If I was born in the month and use it for whatever purposes they wanted that change, and the statewide registration system now keeps the verified birth, death, and other vital statistics within a statewide registry and agents, where predominantly your town clerks can then provide either certified or non certified copies of a birth certificate. There's no more marking a birth certificate as amended. And at the time, town clerks were instructed that any time a birth certificate was changed that the original certificate was to be destroyed. That was something that was put in four years ago. So there would still be an official central version of whatever the vital certificate was, but the original version, the unamended version would be destroyed. And that was pulled out last year, because the Vermont Municipal Clerks and Treasures Association flag that as a serious concern on their part for knowing when they were destroying the right record, or when they were supposed to be discarding a record that was kept in physical form they didn't know if it was duplicated in a chain of custody within the state registry. But the answer to Senator Clarkson's question is that when the record within the registry has changed, that is the record that's going to be available for searches moving forward. So once the amendment is entered into the system that is the official record that can be requested by members of the public by the individual by their family, and now by public agencies which is another amendment that was added last year to the vital record system. So it's going to be the amended version that replaces that original version that is going to be the official document that is available to everyone. You may want to check with David Englander to see whether the statewide registry keeps archives information about the changes that have been made to a particular particular vital record, but the official copy that will be available for genealogical changes and for official government purposes will be the amended certificate. So that's useless for somebody who's studying gender changes, how many people in a population actually choose to change their sex. I mean I think this is, I think somewhere we have to be keeping an original verse certificate. And even if you amend it, I mean I understand amending it. I think this is great, but I also from a, from a research point of view and from a. I think it's essential that an original be kept and you know you can have limited access to it but there has to be some way for research to continue. I thought he said they are kept now that we would know. And I said we removed this is the problem, I think. Unless, to be clear, moving forward, the issue that you dealt with the clerks where they were destroying the older records. That was typically where there was a physical certificate kept in the indices of the individual town clerk. I'm not certain how much that happens now that there is a electronic based central repository where the information is kept. I'm not sure how many clerks out there are going into the system each time there's a new certificate recorded in their visibility and a copy, a static copy of that electronic record on x state and filing it away in the archive. I would suggest that you get some testimony from the department about what chain of custody is David and Tonya. We have to get both. It is a, this is the Department of Health vis-a-vis does have some archival records going back, but those have also been transitioned into the statewide registration system. I mean, just think of health issues. I mean, because when you change, you know, when you have a gender transformation there, there are just tons of things I can imagine. My imagination runs wild thinking of the research that people might do. And part of this was prompted by an article in the last week about the number of LGBTQ families that we have here in Vermont and marriages and, you know, that we're tracking this kind of data and, and, and talking about it and writing about it. The same research might want to be done on how many people in this state or in the United States transition has that grown. I mean, we haven't collected data on that in the past. I think it's a great way to collect, you know, to be able to amend your person certificate, but to alter history is, is, is, I think another issue. And I think that's, I have concerns with that as a, you know, person who loves history and as a person who loves research and being able to write about how this might be the one, one very friendly state to, to transition it. I just need to ask a question to, in my own mind. I thought you said that there is a birth certificate. The original birth certificate is there. It says the, the gender that you were born with it was determined when you were born that that's there. You can amend the birth certificate. It doesn't get stamped amended anymore, but now you could change it to M, F or X from whatever it was, but that this original birth certificate still remains there and is available to the person to their family, and I don't know to who else but I thought you said, maybe either you or I think representative Small said that. So that original copy. Yes, would exist. If it was kept in physical form, and it was not destroyed in that two and a half year period where the agents were instructed to destroy the original copy. Big breath, big pause. We're going to get into it in this bill. And this is not a change from current law. Amendments to a birth certificate related to a what was formerly a change in sex and here is a change in gender are confidential. So, even if that original record exists, the record that you are going to be able to request, which is the important distinction here, discussing Senator Clark Clarkson's question, we're going to be able to request be certified or non certified copy of the birth certificate. You are not going to get that original value. Right. So, the only people that it impacts here are people who might be doing research because the person, the person themselves, or their family, if they choose to let their family know but the person then self will have access to that, assuming that in this two and a half years it wasn't destroyed but from now on they won't be destroyed because that was taken out last year. Well it was taken out last year so they aren't destroying anymore that's what we just heard. So there was a short period of time there where they may have been, and if they were that's the way it happened because apparently we didn't get it written. That's exactly right. And, but, so the researchers are the ones that won't have access to that original birth certificate. Thank you Madam Chair. At what age can an individual choose to do it. That was a question that came up in the house, and the response is that it's going to depend on the rules that are adopted by the Department of Health. The request is open to a person. So, if you are a person, you can request this. The issue is going to be when will a person's capacity to make the request be a self attestation that qualifies under the statewide registration system. What have other states, what ages of other states, have they set ages or that is in research that I have done to this point. Typically it is, if you are under the age of 18, it is with parental consent, and then over the age of 18 would be up to the individual's choice. That's how marriage happens. Marriage. Well, no, no, I mean that is the rule for marriage. Under 16 to 18, you have to have parental consent. 18, you can get married. I did a lot of research on ages, when you could do something in anticipation of a potential override. Yes, I did a lot of research. Can you remind me what the difference between a certified and a certified document is? The answer is paper. So, there is very special and expensive paper that a certified copy is printed on that has watermarks and some other sophisticated paper technology. So, when it's taken to a government office for an official governmental purpose, they can see the watermark, there's a code that's embedded in it. I believe that a few years ago when you were working through the vital records changes that the Department of Health testified that each sheet of paper is some insorbent cost. People were paying up to $10,000 a sheet for it so that they could create false identities. And they're also numbered. So, if you have numbered 20,000 and then 20,001 and then nobody can attest to find 20,002, somebody's in trouble. And they're also sealed. Working through the bill. Okay. Section one of the bill's legislative intent and purpose. It states it's the intent of the General Assembly to promote equity by allowing all individuals regardless of their tender to amend vital records to accurately reflect and affirm their identities. There's been a long history of discrimination and violence against the LGBTQIA plus community. And that the bill you have in front of you is acting to mitigate future harm through the creation of the simple and equitable system that represents small or difficult. Section two of the bill. First, we repeal the current process for the issuance of a new or amended birth certificate to reflect the change in sex. We discussed some of the history and the current process in place there, which as representative small highlighted requires the submission to the court of evidence, either through an attestation of a physician or through documentation of medical procedures, a change in sex. In its place, starting subsection a here, new language on page three for a state deep policy proceeding section, it says this policy the state to honor and acknowledge all gender identity standards to protect public health and dignity of all individuals regardless of their gender. Accordingly, the state shall adopt a simple process by which an individual may amend the marker on a birth certificate to reflect the individual's gender identity, including a third non binary marker. So we call out the third non binary marker here is representative small highlighted typically the gender marker X. Subsection B, we have pursuant to the administrative procedures act department shall adopt rules as necessary for the purposes of implementing administering or enforcing the requirements of the section. So there will be a full API rulemaking process behind this. Subsection D, we have adopted rules to add gender pronouns to the list of markers on a birth certificate in order to foster a gender littered environment and reflect individuals to your identity. So again, through this rulemaking process, they add to the list of markers that can be used on a certificate. And the subsection D, except is otherwise required by law. That clause to come back to records related to the amendment of a birth certificate pursuant to this chapter shall be confidential and shall be exempt from public inspection and copy under the Public Records Act. These sorts of records were already confidential under the terms of the current vital record system. This is just making sure that moving forward with this new language. And there was a question the house about that opening clause and subsection D, except as otherwise required by law. When may it be required by law that these amended records would need to be produced, potentially pursuant to a court order for some reason. And there were some various student questions in the house human services committee about whether original records can be procured for purposes of, for example, an estate after you have someone pass away, would they be able to use this report process to identify a beneficiary officially. For some reason, and the answer from the department was potentially yes. Yes, I mean that. But the original one, one that they would be that the courts would guess what would be or archives is not the original than a record from the department indicating that the amendment to place, which would be just as useful for that process. That's not to do with the archives. Yes. Well, it leads money to a person who has become another who has changed their sex. That is a big legal challenge. And that was what that would be why they would have to go and find the original person to make it so that they would know that that person was the same as a changed person. I mean, if I say I'm leaving this to my son, but in fact, my son has changed and is now my daughter. Correct. I mean, I think that would be an issue, particularly for families that may not know. I mean, not everybody is. Okay, okay, I just know why. Section three provides the department with emergency rulemaking authority. Again, your emergency rules when they're adopted are temporary. They're valid only for a brief period of time. But as was pointed out, this would be the stop gap so that they're still a procedure in place while the department goes through the full process. May I go up to see on page four questions there. I don't know what that means that the department may adopt rules to add gender pronouns does that mean they could add a B and a C and a D or they could add, but I never seen a gender pronoun on a birth certificate. I mean, do they say he or she on birth certificates. I've never seen that I'm actually not certain, but in addition to some of the words that may be used in the form of the birth certificate. The intent here is to allow dependent on, again, the rulemaking process and the input from stakeholders, the department to implement something in addition to the X marker. Okay, so it's the, the, I didn't think of that as the, as a pronoun, but rather as a marker marker. I know, but it's, I was confused by their pronoun there and thought maybe it should say marker instead gender marker, since that's what we used. The, that was my only question. The final wrap up of this subject area and questions that had come up in the past. So any questions about how this squares with federal law and federal processes. The answer is that by and large, the federal government is making this change now. And that there is currently no requirement when a passport is issued that the underlying birth certificate match in terms of either sex or gender marker, what the person is requesting for a passport. The State Department is undergoing rulemaking process now to add the X marker to US passports and there have already been passports issued with X marker. So I believe the first was pursuant to a court order. All right, well, yes. So that cover any further changes the fence might make. I mean, if there are other changes the fence might make. Would we want to incorporate them in this. Or, right, we could do that another day. I think there's enough room here with the department particularly in that subsection C to deal with any changes that may have the federal level. I just want to cure it because we're doing this with the paid family leave task force in economic development. We're also, you know, leaving room for anticipating the feds may act on it as well which. Any other questions for Tucker. So, do we want to have David come in and talk to us about how they're kept who will have access to them and how that will work. I, I'd be very interested. Okay. All right. We'll have him come in. Find out how this would work for. Yes, I did get correspondence from David if you would like that answer now. We certainly could take it. Thank you. So the information is that the statewide registration system will keep track of the original core certificates, but they will only be accessible to the person and the person's family. And the personal case. Yeah. But it does not include to answer your question. It does not include researchers explicitly in that right here, man. So. I would include the court court. Yeah. So. Yes. So I wouldn't be curious to have David because I would be curious to ask David about other research that's done because all very certificates are, I mean, going forward now are only accessible by individual requests, right? No, you can get an uncertified copy. You could go in and get an uncertified copy of Tucker's. Anybody can get uncertified copies. You just anybody can't and anybody. A researcher or the local dog catcher or. I'm sure probably lots of people want to have copies of my birth certificate. Well, I wasn't warning for fun, but yes, anybody can get an uncertified copy. And the thing about we just did something. Judiciary about having allowing access. For people to research on. Expunged records. I think that's what it was. But the problem is, is that how would you, if you opened it up to people doing research, how would you even certify or verify who is doing legitimate research? I could go in and say, I'm doing research on on this. And anybody could claim that they were doing research. I actually don't think that's. I don't think that's the case. I think there are ways to prove legitimate research and have institutions affirm who people are and what work they're doing. I guess with all of these things, all historic records. It is, it is the challenge if people can't access aspects of history that are. I mean, it's just a question for me and it's like, is it worth putting it's like a copyright of a book. I mean, we put X number of years on it like a life expectancy and then it's available or. I don't know, I have a question. I just, yeah, Senator wrong and sale. Well, I'm I'm just with you, Madam chair, I feel like that actually opens up bigger questions that we don't have time to answer about people accessing really sensitive information period, we're trying to do more and more to protect people's identities for theft reasons, etc. And the health department, I imagine and believe and we could probably get confirmation of this though. You know, it's my it would be my sense because they track everything marriages divorces this information will probably end up helping them track census information when people take a census they list their preferred gender. So that to me seems like the critical component to research I think that it's frightening to think about somebody who's going to go look at individual birth certificates or ask the Department of Health for information about who has switched genders in some way or asked for a different gender marker were Vermonters. You know, we don't really want our information out there so I think anything we do to try and give some, some nod to somebody's original birth certificate doesn't seem right and I, I guess it's problematic to me to call it history. But somebody is often doing this because they they feel like they their identity has remained the same and that the information around them identifying our gender does not feel accurate to them so I don't I you know I think just calling it history is is unfair you know gender is already a social construct so I just think we should be really sensitive about this and just recognize when someone changes their name or changes sensitive information on their birth certificate it just doesn't seem appropriate for us to go that deep. I think that there are the Department of Health, I'm sure keeps statistics so there's probably aggregate information this can be accessed without identifying information but it would be just the idea of opening it up to research is. I mean, I, I can legitimately be doing research for my, my capstone project or something else and my thesis and get access to stuff that I really shouldn't have access to and so I, and I. Yeah, I don't think that's a problem I think that the Department of Health deals with research all the time right and they have a lens through which they look at it and hoops that you have to jump through is serious research I think that's, I think that is probably manageable. I just would, and maybe I just have to, I don't, there's nothing rushed on this bill so I don't want to feel pushed on this and I actually think there are questions that we may not for David. So, I just don't want to feel rushed on it. No, we can, we can definitely have David come in, I, and we should figure out what it is. We want to ask him, because I doing they, they do the Department of Health as legitimate research all the time with HIPAA protected information by, by using aggregate information. And there was help with specific information might be interested in. But, but we don't need to tell the department that they can, they can do that research, and I don't think in here we need to say they can do that research. No, I agree. It's, it's, I thought, I thought when you said open it up to research, you meant me going into research. So, that's not research. No, I couldn't be doing research for a, but if he says, if you did a state, a country wide study on cancers or different health outcomes that happen, you know, that are specific perhaps to people who've changed their gender. I mean, there may be issues, health issues that, that may be very legitimate and that the LGBTQ community wants to know. And the Department of Health can do that. And the question is, are they, would they be able to do that? And would they be able to participate without the individual saying, yes. Okay, so that's the kind of question I'm talking about. And this may be research. Okay, everyone wants to know the answers to. Okay, we'll, we'll hear from David. My understanding is what we're doing here is we're doing a power to adopt emergency rules, which is something pretty quick, followed by a full rulemaking process that takes longer. And it seems like some of these questions about whether it's open to researchers or not seem like kind of questions that could be, that could be raised in the process. So instead of us having to decide whether. I can just ask David. Right. That's a question for the rulemaking process. Brilliant. Good idea. That means you're serving on rules next time. And they meet every Wednesday morning, or every Thursday morning or something ridiculous thing. So, okay, so we will schedule this again, and have David come in and I'd like, I'd like to do it next week so that we can start. So we'll schedule this for sometime next week. I don't know if we have anything scheduled for Thursday or Friday of this week. We don't have anything scheduled on Thursday. I'll call him and see if he can come in on Thursday. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you Taylor for moving on this. My pleasure. Thank you for taking it up so quickly. Yes, well, I did. I promised that. She needed to get it represented to that she needed to get out quickly so we could take it up. And she did. She did.