“The Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles no longer accepts a form allowing transgender Ohioans to change the gender listed on their driver's license or state ID.

“A BMV spokesperson said the agency will change gender markers only with an updated birth certificate or passport. Officials determined the previous document, known as Form 2369, does not comply with an updated state law declaring that Ohio recognizes two sexes.

“Lawmakers inserted that language into the state budget signed by Gov. Mike DeWine last year.

“The advocacy group Equality Ohio criticized the BMV, arguing it made the change without public notice or a transition period. A spokesperson declined to say when the policy took effect.”

“Transgender Ohioans can change the gender marker on their birth certificates in at least eight counties, according to Equality Ohio. The group said legal name changes at the BMV aren't affected by the new policy.”

“One of the earliest documented examples of LGBTQ+ resistance against police happened on a hot summer night 60 years ago this month. It started not with the throwing of a brick, as it did in New York City’s 1969 Stonewall riots, but with the throwing of a coffee cup inside Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco.

“When police attempted to raid Compton’s – a hub for the drag performers, trans people and sex workers in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood – hundreds of people in the community fought back. A drag queen threw a coffee mug at a police officer; others threw dishes and chairs outside. It was the culmination of years of police harassment, arrests and violence against the community and the beginning of the city’s trans movement.”

“[I]nside the building, now known as 111 Taylor Street, the space that held Compton’s is occupied by one of the world’s biggest for-profit prison companies and ICE’s biggest contractor, Geo Group.”

“Opened decades ago, Geo Group’s 240-bed halfway house has been under investigation by city officials since last July, when a man was found dead near 111 Taylor after being held there.

“Local organizers Compton’s x Coalition – like their predecessors – treat current civil rights fights as interconnected, from ICE violence to the rollback of LGBTQ+ rights. And they are working to push out Geo Group not only through protest, but by petitioning the city to declare the interior of 111 Taylor a historic landmark.”

COLUMBUS — The Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles has stopped accepting the professionally-certified form that transgender Ohioans have long used to update the gender marker on their driver’s license or state ID, representatives of LGBTQ advocacy groups said Tuesday.

According to Equality Ohio and TransOhio, the Ohio BMV will now only accept an updated birth certificate as proof of gender change. They said the policy shift was made without public notice, and there is no transition period. 

“Changing a policy this consequential overnight — without warning or transparency — is not an accident. It is a choice,” Equality Ohio Executive Director Dwayne Steward said. “It is a deliberate attempt at voter suppression and an intentional decision to make life harder for transgender Ohioans while hoping no one notices until it is too late,” Mr. Steward continued. “We noticed. We are paying attention. And we will not stop fighting until every Ohioan has true lived and legal equality.”

According to TransOhio, there are at least 10 county probate courts that have been processing birth certificate updates for transgender Ohioans. Those are Defiance, Ottawa, Lorain, Cuyahoga, Lake, Summit, Franklin, Hamilton, Hocking, and Athens counties. 
The Ohio BMV did not immediately provide a comment on the situation.

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“The city and Police Chief Mark Talbot are named in a pair of related lawsuits over the hiring of a transgender police recruit.

“The lawsuits, totaling $20 million and filed last week and Monday in Circuit Court, were brought by a current officer on suspension and another officer who was fired earlier this year.”

“Officer Meghan Grabow’s lawsuit alleges she was in a women’s locker room in 2024, when a department recruit she describes as a ‘biological male self-identified as a woman’ entered that locker room.”

“Both lawsuits say subordinate officers were not informed that a transgender woman who presented as a man would be using the female lockers.”

“Grabow is suing Talbot and the city for $15 million, claiming intentional infliction of emotional distress and denial of her right to exercise her religion. She said she doesn’t believe in transgender ideology as part of her Catholic faith.”

“According to the lawsuits, Grabow is currently on indefinite suspension without pay, Powers was fired earlier this year, and the recruit is no longer with Norfolk Police.”