Oklahoma Gov. Stitt signed SB 1100, barring nonbinary sex designations on birth certificates

On April 26, 2022, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed Senate Bill 1100, which amends the state's vital-records statutes (63 O.S. Sections 1-311, 1-313, 1-316, and 1-321) to require that the biological sex designation on a certificate of birth be either "male" or "female" and expressly prohibits a nonbinary designation or any symbol representing one, including the letter "X." The bill carried an emergency clause and took effect immediately upon the governor's signature.

Oklahoma's Department of Health had begun permitting nonbinary birth-certificate markers the prior year after settling a lawsuit brought by an Oklahoma-born resident who had been denied one; the settlement prompted outrage among Republicans, including Stitt, whose appointee to lead the agency resigned the following day before Stitt issued an executive order reversing the policy. SB 1100 wrote that reversal into statute, and outlets covering the signing described Oklahoma as the first state to explicitly bar nonbinary designations on government-issued birth certificates.

Updates

2024-06-18 — 10th Circuit reversed dismissal of birth-certificate lawsuit [4]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit unanimously reversed a lower court's dismissal of Fowler v. Stitt, the lawsuit challenging Oklahoma's categorical ban on correcting sex markers on birth certificates (the same ban SB 1100 wrote into statute), holding the policy lacked a rational basis and that a majority of the panel found discrimination against transgender people warrants heightened scrutiny; the case was remanded for further proceedings, not finally resolved.

2025-06-30 — Supreme Court granted cert and remanded case to 10th Circuit [5]

The U.S. Supreme Court granted Oklahoma's petition for certiorari in Fowler v. Stitt and remanded the case to the Tenth Circuit for reconsideration in light of United States v. Skrmetti (upholding Tennessee's restrictions on gender-transition care for minors), without ruling on the merits of Oklahoma's birth-certificate policy.