Montana
Judge hears arguments over effort to block Montana rule barring sex designation changes • Daily Montanan
A district court judge in Helena heard arguments Thursday afternoon from attorneys seeking a preliminary injunction on behalf of two transgender Montanans who argue that a rule from the state public health department preventing them from changing their government documents to denote their gender instead of their birth sex is unconstitutional.
ACLU of Montana attorney Alex Rate told Lewis and Clark County District Court Judge Mike Menahan that the Department of Public Health and Human Services’ rule finalized in February essentially prohibits transgender Montanans from changing the sex designations on their birth certificates.
He argued that the state Motor Vehicle Division is not allowing the plaintiffs, Jessica Kalarchik and Jane Doe, to change their sex designations on their driver’s licenses because they are unable to change those designations on their birth certificates in the first place.
Rate used the words of Missoula County District Court Judge Jason Marks when he struck down a bill to prohibit youth from receiving gender-affirming care in September 2023.
“The purported purpose given for these policies is disingenuous. It seems more likely that the policy’s purpose is to ban an outcome deemed undesirable by the State of Montana. This conduct is replete with animus towards transgender persons,” Rate said, citing Marks’s order.
The state, represented by the Attorney General’s Office, argued that sex and gender are not interchangeable, and that court precedent recognizes sex as a binary of male and female.
The plaintiffs are asking the court to issue an injunction barring DPHHS from enforcing its rule and the MVD from not changing sex designations on driver’s licenses, which has not been introduced as a written policy but one which the plaintiffs’ attorneys say is being enforced on the ground.
They are also seeking to certify a class of transgender Montanans in what they hope will become a class-action lawsuit protecting the rules from being enforced for all current and future transgender Montanans who want to change their birth certificates and IDs or driver’s licenses.
Marks said issuing a preliminary injunction would restore the status quo in place in 2017, when Montanans were allowed to change their sex designations without issue. He said that even though a 2021 law that was similar to the DPHHS rule finalized this year was struck down as unconstitutional, the department was in 2023 found to be in contempt of court for “openly and repeatedly” defying the injunction.
And in February, the department moved ahead with the rule change after the Legislature passed a bill, Senate Bill 458, aiming to state in Montana law that there “are exactly two sexes, male and female.” DPHHS said the only changes to sex designations allowed would be to correct errors on birth certificates. A district court judge this past summer found Senate Bill 458 to be unconstitutional as well, though the state is appealing that decision.
Rate told Menahan that backstory is key to proving that the State of Montana is targeting transgender people with the rule and discriminating against them in violation of the state Constitution, its equal protection clause, and the right to privacy it affords Montanans. He argued the state offered no compelling interest for the rule.
“The state says that this isn’t speech at all, but rather a record. But that is a statement of your sex, and the state is forcing our clients to present their view of their sex,” Rate said. “The state cannot arbitrarily decide what is an individual’s sex and force them to speak that into the world. That is the definition of compelled speech.”
Assistant Attorney General Alwyn Lansing argued on behalf of the state, telling Menahan that the plaintiffs were trying to get the court to make transgender people a protected class.
“To adopt plaintiffs’ argument would be to create a new protected class, which is gender identity, that is in direct conflict with Montana Supreme Court precedent. The Legislature is the only one who could do that,” she said. “…The right to privacy does not include a right to replace an objective fact of biological sex on a government document with subjective gender identity.”
She also contended that since not all transgender Montanans are seeking to update their personal documents, siding with the plaintiffs would prescribe “personal values of some onto the laws which govern all.”
Rate said the state could not rely on Senate Bill 458 because it is enjoined, and the expert testimony the plaintiffs submitted from two medical experts in the transgender field showed there is a strong relationship between sex and gender identity, and that disallowing that expression was harmful and discriminatory to transgender Montanans.
Arguing as to why a class should be certified in the case, ACLU attorney Malita Picasso said state data showed at least 280 Montanans had sought to amend their birth certificates during the past seven years, at least 85 since 2022. She said certifying a class of transgender Montanans who currently or in the future may want to change their sex designations would ensure that any court decision would apply to all transgender Montanans, not just the current plaintiffs in the case.
She also said that certifying a class for the case would prevent confusion should separate cases be filed in other Montana district courts and judges come to differing conclusions. Assistant Attorney General Thane Johnson told the court that whatever Menahan decides regarding the injunction would apply to the entire state of Montana, and he believed the plaintiffs did not meet all the necessary prongs to turn the case into a class-action suit.
Picasso responded that the state’s record showed it would try to fight the changes even if an injunction was granted, however. She said that if Menahan issues an injunction and the two plaintiffs do get their documents changed, the state could then claim the case and injunction were moot because the plaintiffs had gotten the relief they had sought, then apply the same rules to other transgender Montanans.
“If the defendants would like to enter a stipulated agreement in which they, you know, say that they won’t enforce it as to others, then I think that maybe we could reconsider,” Picasso said. “But at this stage, it seems pretty clear that were the injunction to be issued only as to the named plaintiffs, that the defendants would be arguing for that to be limited to just them.”
Menahan did not issue any orders from the bench Thursday and did not state when he might do so following the two-hour hearing.
BOZEMAN — Aaron Flint and Al Olszewski, Republican candidates for Montana’s Western District U.S. House race, squared off Tuesday in their party’s only scheduled debate before the party primary.
The two debated for about 90 minutes at Bozeman’s Calvary Chapel before an audience of about 120 people. Bozeman anchors Gallatin County, which is second in Republican votes only to Flathead County within the 18-county district.
Natural resource jobs, affordable housing and U.S. military attacks on Iran dominated the discussion. Each question drew 12 minutes of response. Both men called for an end to stock trading by members of Congress, and for federal budgets to be passed on time through regular procedures.
The Montana GOP sponsored the debate. Candidate Christi Jacobsen, Montana’s secretary of state, was unable to attend, according to state Republican Party Chair Art Wittich. State Senate President Matt Regier moderated.
Among the highlights: Flint mentioned no fewer than eight times that he is endorsed by President Donald Trump. Olszewski mentioned Trump by name only a couple of times.
Never too far from Flint’s talking points were “far-left socialists,” whom he credited for “gerrymandering” the Western House District (which has delivered comfortable wins for Republicans since first appearing on the ballot in 2022). The 2026 election cycle was the target of Democrats on the state’s districting commission, Flint said. (Both Democrats on the commission that drew the district in 2021 voted against its current configuration.)
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The near faux pas of the night came during Olszewski’s discussion of good-paying jobs in trades and natural resources: “Trades jobs, natural resource jobs, you know, high-dollar, white-collar jobs, our remote workers who have moved into Montana, and we’ve adapted an economy around them. You know, these are the people, and those are the jobs that will bring our kids home, those high-paying white-collar jobs, or a good natural resource job in western Montana, in one of those mines, or, you know, you know, a sawyer or a hooker” — big pause — “as in timber, not the other way around.”
The line that didn’t land: Flint tried and failed to get audience applause for the 2024 defeat of Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester by Republican Sen. Tim Sheehy — an unseating Flint campaigned for.
“How many of you out there are so glad that we finally got rid of the flip-flop, flat-top liberal senator, Jon Tester? How many of you are so glad we finally did that?”
After a silence, Flint explained to people watching the debate on Facebook that the audience was just being polite.
“They’re waving because we can’t have disruptions. See, they’re good rule followers here in the Republican Party,” Flint said.
Asked how to alleviate Montana’s housing affordability crisis:
Olszewski: “The only way you can afford an expensive house is you’ve got to have a job that pays good money. Tourist jobs provide rent and roommates. Trades jobs, natural resource jobs, high‑dollar white‑collar jobs … those are the jobs that will bring our kids home.” Dr. Al, as Olszewski is widely known, said Wall Street investment buyers are distorting housing prices and the federal government has weakened the dollar.
Flint: “Thirty percent of the cost of a home is all due to red tape and regulations … It costs $100,000 to build a home before you even put a hole in the ground.”
Flint said reviving Montana’s timber industry would lower home values and added, “I support President Trump’s ban on these big Wall Street firms buying single-family homes. I think that’s something that we’ve got to get across the finish line.”
“We can deliver when it comes to making the Montana dream affordable again by delivering affordable housing. But another piece is promoting trades and trades education to build up our workforce.”
Asked how Congress should respond to the Iran conflict:
Olszewski: “I supported our president with what happened in Venezuela. There’s a $25 million bounty on basically someone that was killing our people through drugs, right? I’m not so happy with what’s going on in the Iran war. I’m not a warrior. I’m a physician from the military that fixed military people … What my perspective is, is that countries can win wars, but people do not. They don’t come back.” Olszewski said Congress will have to decide whether to authorize further use of military force and set terms in about 10 days.
Flint: “Let me just say this. We are sick and tired of these forever wars, and we do not want to see a long-term boots-on-the-ground Iraq-style nation-building exercise, and I think President Trump shares that mission as well. Let me also say this about Iran. First off, [former Venezuelan President Nicolás] Maduro is behind bars. [Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei is dead, but the far-left socialists are on the march in Montana.”
Asked about reforming Congress:
Olszewski: “What our congressmen and congresswomen have to understand is that if you’re in the House, the House belongs to the people, and they need to, first and foremost, represent you, not themselves, not special interests. It’s not about sound-bites. It’s about actually getting work done and governing.” Olszewski said the House needs to pass a budget based on 12 agency appropriations bills before the end of each federal fiscal year, a process known as “regular order.”
Flint: “We need to return to regular order and get single-subject bills and get these appropriations bills done one by one. If they can’t get a budget done, they shouldn’t get paid. And we need a ban on congressional stock trading. Because I think part of the reason why the American people are so frustrated with Congress right now is because … they believe that Congress is so useless, because we’ve got some of these politicians back there that are getting rich off the backs of taxpayers.”
Neither candidate offered a plan for cutting taxes, once a staple of Republican platforms. Both supported reductions in federal spending without identifying particular cuts.
Voting in Montana’s 2026 primary election begins May 4 and ends June 2.
POLSON, Mont. — Two motorcyclists crashed on Highway 35 near Polson after failing to negotiate a left-hand curve, leaving one man dead and another hospitalized, according to the Montana Highway Patrol.
Two motorcycles were traveling southbound on Highway 35 when both drifted into a guardrail. Both drivers were separated from their motorcycles and ended up on the other side of the guardrail.
A 58-year-old Polson man was confirmed dead at the scene. The second driver, a 45-year-old man, also from Polson, was taken to the hospital with injuries.
Alcohol is a suspected factor in the crash, according to the Montana Highway Patrol.
The crash is under investigation.
KALISPELL — A Flathead County man is turning a personal rock bottom into a lifeline for his community by starting a free, late-night ride service to keep drunk drivers off the roads.
Adam Bruzza started Big Sky Sobriety Shuttle LLC, a free ride share service for people who have been drinking, after realizing he was struggling with addiction.
Maddie Keifer reports – watch the video here:
MT man starts free, late-night ride service to keep drunk drivers off the roads
“I just wanted to give people who do still drink the option for a safe, sober ride home,” Bruzza said.
Bruzza said a devastating mistake behind the wheel became a turning point where he decided enough was enough.
“I was charged with a DUI October 22 of 2024,” Bruzza said.
After a few months focused on his sobriety, Bruzza channeled his energy into his community by starting the shuttle service.
He operates the shuttle in his personal pickup truck. Riders can reach him by phone, text or social media at any time of day or night at no cost.
“I just wanted to give others the opportunity to not get a life changing charge,” Bruzza said.
Bruzza works with bars to connect riders with his service. Although the Big Sky Sobriety Shuttle is a new endeavor, he has already seen a big impact.
“The community response without a doubt has been unconditional love and support that makes my heart all warm and fuzzy,” Bruzza said.
Bruzza also shared a message for others who may be struggling with addiction.
“Your life is worth it, there are people that care out there and it is okay to ask for help,” Bruzza said.
To learn more, click here to visit the Facebook page.
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