MISSOULA — A state law that defined sex as binary was ruled unconstitutional on Tuesday, Feb. 18.
A Montana District Court judge ruled that Senate Bill 458 violates the right to privacy and equal protection under the law guaranteed in the Montana Constitution.
While the Montanans who filed the lawsuit, and their lawyers, are happy with the ruling — the State believes it is wrong.
They plan to appeal the decision, according to Chase Scheuer, press secretary for the Montana Department of Justice and Attorney General Austin Knudsen.
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The law first introduced back in 2023, sought to define sex as binary — either male or female. In the decision, Judge Leslie Halligan found that the law violated the state Constitution.
“Regulations that interfere with an individual’s ability to self-define and make personal choices concerning their identity infringes on the right to privacy,” Halligan wrote in the decision.
The law has been under scrutiny since 2023. After it passed, a group of Montanans immediately sued, saying it discriminated against them based on sex and violated their privacy.
Dimitrios Tsolakidis and his firm, Helena-based Upper Seven Law, were involved in the lawsuits.
“Our plaintiffs are Montanans, lifelong Montanans, who are either trans or were born with inter-sex variations or are Two Spirit people,” he said. “We've been fighting this battle with them for about a year and a half, but they've been fighting this battle their whole lives.”
One of those Montanans is Anna Tellez, a mechanic from Eastern Montana. She has been following Senate Bill 458 since it was introduced in the Legislature. She was relieved by this week’s decision.
“Just exceptionally thankful that the rule of law actually does still apply in Montana and that when we have things in our Constitution, like the right to privacy, that it really does apply to everyone," Tellez said. "To keep the state out of everybody's business."
In June, a different judge ruled that the law was invalid because of technicalities. But this ruling said the law itself is invalid.
“The Court yesterday said that it's not just the title that's unconstitutional, it's the contents of this bill that are unconstitutional,” Tsolakidis said. “This law would've made it okay, for example, for all of our plaintiffs to get fired from their jobs, lose their housing, be denied healthcare, all because of how they identify. Their gender. The Montana Constitution doesn't allow that. Not for them, not for anyone.”
The State of Montana disagreed with the decision. They aim to take the case before the Montana Supreme Court, according to Scheuer.
“Yet again, the Montana judiciary ignored the will of Montanans and went out of its way to advance the woke agendas of their political allies,” Scheuer wrote. “We plan to appeal this outrageous rejection of common sense.”
While the case is likely not over, Tellez hopes this ruling brings people together.
“The feeling of finally get a big win, after a year and a half of litigation, sitting around and being stressed about it, I’m just not ready quite to let go of the high feeling of ‘we won,’” she said. “Just because people are different, they are still human beings and that everyone is perfectly capable of getting along and being adults. We're all just trying not to lose our car keys here.”
