This is the second of a two-part series examining how the state's jumble of statutes and court rulings impacts transgender people who need to change the gender marker on their birth certificates.
A federal judge told Ohio officials they had to let transgender people change the gender marker on their birth certificates in 2020, but the state has failed to ensure the service is accessible in every county.
A woman in Clark County who was denied an order to change the gender on her birth certificate challenged the state's unequal access to the service.
Her attorneys argued that when people can't update their documents, it violates the privacy of transgender Ohioans who live with a name or gender that’s different from the name on their birth certificate. And that can even endanger them in some cases.
“It's hard to come out as a trans woman," said Hailey Adelaide, 51. She lives in Dayton and came out as transgender in 2020.
“Your body screams, 'man, manly.' And it doesn't matter how much makeup you put on. You get called out as a drag queen or a transvestite or a f—t, pervert, pedophile,” Adelaide said.
Many people find it difficult to come out as transgender. The coming out process can be even more difficult when a person is older and first seeking gender-affirming care. Many treatments have the best results implemented when people are young or when the person has the money for further interventions.
“Listen to my voice. It's not feminine. You would go to a drive up at a restaurant. ‘Hello, sir. What can I get you?’ I could be dressed in a full dress with pink hair and when I talk to someone, I still get called sir," Adelaide said.
As a young child, Adelaide expressed her gender naturally.
“Women would be like, ‘your daughter is so cute. What's her name?’ And, you know, my mom would just smile and she would just literally keep moving on and I knew no different," she said.
But things changed when Adelaide’s dad took her to a barber around the time she was a kindergartner.
“I walked out of there without my hair and it was gone. And from that point forward, my toys were gone. They were replaced with like, a ball, glove, Neil Armstrong and the Apollo mission," Adelaide said.
Adelaide tried to come out in high school.
“There was no help. There's nowhere to go. I had to deal with this on my own. I had to deal with rejection. I had to deal with the anguish, the frustration of this isn't who I am, but I don't understand it," she said.
Adelaide didn’t even know the language to describe how she felt.
“There were no books. There was no Internet. You couldn't go to the library and look it up. You were alone. And I certainly didn't know where to go, in Dayton or Columbus. People just didn't come out like that," Adelaide said.
She spent most of her life living outside of her identity, but while she was married in Michigan, Adelaide’s ex-wife helped her to come to terms with her identity.
“She was able to see that girl that was inside me. I owe my entire life to this person who was brave enough to reach out her hand and grab that little girl that was inside of me and pull her out," Adelaide said.
Adelaide moved back to Ohio and began living as a woman for the first time.
“I had to make a decision," Adelaide said. "You decide you're either going to stick with it, be honest in your true self, are you going to walk away right now and not get everybody involved? Just let it go. But I couldn't. Hailey was too strong. She wasn't going back.”
Adelaide immediately faced abuse.
“They get joy to call you out in public," she said.
She described being stopped in a store.
“The guy in front of me called me out, made fun of me. And it was actually the first day that I had actually gone out wearing a dress. I thought I had my I's dotted and my T's crossed. They still called me out," she said.
To try to help her appearance on the outside match her internal identity, Adelaide sought hormone replacement therapy and found a doctor she trusted.
“After several months of these nice nurses and the staff, it all changed one day when my doctor was replaced by someone in the office who came in and did a complete overhaul of my chart," she said.
The caregiver used Adelaide's former name, or deadname, and stopped her meds.
“And it was then that I knew I had to make the change,” Adelaide said.
She gathered up all of her paperwork and filed the name and gender marker change. But Clark County Probate Court Judge Richard Carey would only grant Adelaide’s name change.
Carey said he didn’t have the power to change the gender on her birth certificate. That’s even though many judges in other Ohio counties do this after reading the same guidelines and statutes.
Adelaide and her legal team appealed the decision, but the appeals court sided with Carey. So they took the case to the Ohio Supreme Court, but the judges didn’t settle the issue.
That means many probate court judges in the state will change a gender marker on a birth certificate for a transgender person, but many won’t. You can read more about that legal terrain in part one of this series.
Attorneys Chad Eggspuehler and Maya Simek represented Adelaide.
“When you have a core identifying document, like a birth certificate that's used for so many aspects of your life, whether it's applying for school, housing, a job, when you have a document like that, that immediately outs somebody as transgender, that is an invasion of their privacy and it creates a risk of harm," Eggspuehler said.
Simek said that can lead to discrimination.
“We know that without the ability to have matching documentation, people are at a substantial disadvantage for both being outed, but also for getting access to systems that are important, such as employment or housing,” Simek said.
Simek, Eggspuehler and Adelaide said they asked the courts to make sure all Ohioans have equal access to their rights and the courts failed to do that for transgender people.
“I mean, I feel unseen. I feel unheard. I feel misunderstood," Adelaide said.
People can contact Equality Ohio to find out more information about how to change their legal documents to match their gender identity.
Ohio natives can contact their probate courts to find out their judge's policy.
Residents can apply for changes in the county they live in, the county they were born in and the county their mother resided in at the time of their birth.
