Illinois’ current birth certificate system labels parents in ways that may not be accurate for some queer parents. The state is working to fix that, and one transgender couple is already benefiting.
Illinois residents Myles Brady-Davis and his wife Precious Brady-Davis, were expecting a child. Myles was carrying the baby, but identifies as transmasculine; he would be the child’s father, not the mother. Precious, a transgender woman, would be the mother. Because the Illinois birth certificate system, however, is set up so that only the gestational parent can be named as the “Mother/Co-Parent,” and the other parent as “Father/Co-Parent,” this would not correctly reflect their relationships to the child.
Myles, who happens to be the communications director for Equality Illinois, called up the fine folks at Lambda Legal. When the couple’s baby, Zayn, was born in early December, Lambda helped explain their situation to the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH). As Lambda Legal wrote at their blog, correcting the identification on the birth certificate is more than just a nicety. Incorrect information would be “a clear mistake that could compromise the family’s safety because of the confusion it might create…. All parents and their children need accurate identity documents to establish their relationship to each other and to protect the child—in both routine and emergency events—for a variety of reasons such as enrolling a child in school, authorizing medical care, establishing eligibility for government benefits or child support, and to authorize a parent to pick up a child from daycare or school.”
Our well of love is overflowing as we announce the birth of our babygirl Zayn YeMaya Echelle Brady-Davis. #babybradydavis #mylesandprecious pic.twitter.com/mRlOpkKzPL
— Precious Brady-Davis ??????????????????????? (@mspreciousdavis) December 17, 2019
A spokesperson for the DPH told the Chicago Sun-Times last week that IDPH will issue a birth certificate for the Brady-Davis’ child that reflects their correct identities, and said that the state had in fact started working in October to make this a “permanent option easily available to all transgender parents.”
Kara Ingelhart, a staff attorney at Lambda and one of the lawyers representing Precious and Myles, told me via e-mail, “We are so pleased that IDPH is modernizing its policies and practices to be inclusive of our transgender parents in Illinois like our clients Myles Brady Davis and Precious Brady-Davis.”
Congratulations to the Brady-Davis’ and to all the parents in Illinois who will be more accurately identified on their children’s vital documents in the future!