The Supreme Court of Montana ruled on Tuesday that trans residents of the state have a right to update their legal documents to accurately reflect their genders.

“Transgender discrimination is, by its very nature, sex discrimination,” Justice Laurie McKinnon wrote in the court’s decision.

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“Government issued identification documents are necessary to access public life. When they do not accurately reflect a person’s sexual identity, the transgender Montanan is prevented, based on their sex, from obtaining the same attributes of public life that a cisgender Montanan may obtain. Hence, the inability of transgender Montanans to receive government-issued identification documents accurately reflecting their gender identity is fundamentally about the nature of sex and suspect class discrimination.”

The case centered on SB 458, which Gov. Greg Gianforte (R) signed into law in 2023 to legally define “sex” as either male or female based on biology. The law led to trans residents being unable to access accurate legal documents.

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A lower court issued a preliminary injunction against the legislation in 2024 after two plaintiffs sued. The state appealed, which led the Montana Supreme Court to take up the matter. The judges voted 5-2 to uphold the preliminary injunction, which will allow trans residents in the state to continue updating their legal documents.

The state Supreme Court rejected the state’s argument that the plaintiffs’ potential injuries are “far too speculative” and said they “demonstrated concrete, particularized injuries traceable to state policies.”

“Each time that Ms. Doe or Ms. Kalarchik must present their identifying documents to another person—during a traffic stop, to vote, to apply for employment, or to board a plane—they must disclose that they are transgender,” McKinnon wrote. “They must carry and produce a government issued document that does not reflect who they believe they are. Plaintiffs, therefore, have a vested and deeply personal stake in the ultimate outcome of this litigation.”

Alex Rate, deputy director of the ACLU-Montana and counsel for the plaintiffs, said in a statement to Courthouse News that the ruling “reflects what we all know to be true: that the Montana Constitution protects the human dignity of everyone, including transgender Montanans.”

“Everyone deserves the equal protection of the law,” Rate continued, “and policies that single out individuals or groups for discrimination and harassment will not withstand constitutional scrutiny.”

One of the plaintiffs, Jessica Kalarchik, also celebrated the ruling: “This victory represents not only a personal milestone, but also a meaningful affirmation of fairness, justice and the rule of law,” Kalarchik said.

The Montana Attorney General’s Office, on the other hand, expressed outrage in an anti-trans statement.

“Requiring the state to issue false documents simply doesn’t change the reality that men cannot become women, and women cannot become men,” said Chase Scheuer, the office’s deputy communications director.

“It’s disappointing, but not surprising, that once again the majority of the Montana Supreme Court chose to advance the agendas of their woke political allies rather than evaluate the case on its facts.”

This is not the first time the Montana Supreme Court has sided with trans people. In 2024, it became the first state in the nation to uphold gender-affirming care access when it upheld a temporary injunction against the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth.

In May of last year, the state’s Fourth Judicial District Court officially struck down the ban.

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