The ACLU of Montana – representing Montanans from across the State – filed a Complaint challenging a new law that seeks to erase 2S-LGBTQIA+ Montanans from dozens of sections of the Montana Code.

The ACLU of Montana has filed a lawsuit challenging a law that defines the word “sex” throughout state code as either male or female, based on a person’s biology at birth. The plaintiffs argue the law denies legal recognition and protections to people who are gender non-conforming.

It’s the third lawsuit stemming from Senate Bill 458 alone since Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed it into law in May. Gianforte this year signed legislation to ban drag events in public spaces and gender-affirming care for trans youth. None have escaped legal challenges so far.

The nonprofit’s lawsuit, filed this week in Missoula County District Court, requests the court declare the law unconstitutional in part as because it “potentially eliminates discrimination protections for transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people” in a number of settings, as well as protections from “discrimination in general under the Montana Human Rights Act.”

"The legislature seemed to be trying to adopt a quasi-medical definition of sex that actually, if you talk to any health care professional, is completely unworkable and is completely undefined to an ordinary Montanan," said Alex Rate, the Legal Director for the ACLU.

The law, Senate Bill 458, was passed by this year’s GOP-controlled Legislature, despite vigorous opposition from Democrats and LGBTQ+ rights groups, and signed by Gov. Greg Gianforte, a Republican whose nonbinary adult child was among the bill’s public opponents.

However, the suit alleges it wasn’t just a legislative oversight that caused this new definition, they point to testimony given during the passage of Senate Bill 458, coupled with examples from state Republican lawmakers that demonstrate a hostility and disregard for residents who don’t identify or cannot be placed in the two biological categories mandate by the Legislature.

A group of transgender and intersex individuals are suing the state over a new law. Senate Bill 458 revised Montana Code to provide a common definition for the word “sex” when referring to a human.