A group of transgender individuals has sued Gov. Bill Lee and the Tennessee health commissioner to be able to match the gender on their birth certificate with their gender identity.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, alleges Tennessee’s policy, which prevents transgender individuals from making changes to their birth certificate, violates equal protection of the laws and rights of liberty and privacy. Similar suits have been filed and won in Puerto Rico and Idaho in recent years and lawsuits are underway in Kansas and Ohio.

"Our government does not get to define who we are to the country," Lambda Legal senior attorney Omar Gonzalez-Pagan said Tuesday outside the Estes Kefauver Federal Courthouse in Nashville. "Our constitutionally guaranteed rights to liberty and autonomy allow us to do that for ourselves. It is our Constitution which requires the government to respect who we are."

The policy in dispute is part of the state's Vital Records Act that says the gender on a birth certificate cannot be changed as a result of sex change surgery. But those enforcing the policy prohibit changing gender on a birth certificate for all transgender individuals regardless of what steps they have taken to live consistently with their gender identity, according to the lawsuit.

Tennesseans are able to match their driver's license gender designation with their gender identity, but not their birth certificates, the lawsuit states. In 47 U.S. states, residents are allowed to align their birth certificates with their gender identity, and the U.S. Department of State allows changes to gender on a passport, according to Gonzalez-Pagan.

Gonzalez-Pagan emphasized the importance of a birth certificate in navigating everyday life, with documentation needed for employment, housing, health care, banking, travel and government services.

The Tennessee vital records policy leads to the disclosure of private and sensitive information that can affect a transgender individual's employment and interaction with others, and it takes away their control of how or if they wish to disclose their transgender status, according to the lawsuit. It also can expose them to harassment, prejudice, discrimination or violence.

"Possessing accurate identification documents that are consistent with a person’s gender identity — a person’s core internal sense of their own gender — is essential to their basic social and economic well-being," the lawsuit states. "Few things are as essential to one’s personhood and navigating the world as being able to correctly and accurately identify one’s gender to the world."

Tennessee, Ohio and Kansas are the only states that prohibit gender changes on a birth certificate, Gonzalez-Pagan said. Cisgender, or non-transgender, individuals in Tennessee are allowed to correct the gender on their birth certificate if it is inaccurate, but the option is not available to transgender individuals, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit is filed on behalf of four plaintiffs born in Tennessee, including Memphis resident Kayla Gore and Jason Scott, who lives in Seattle and was born in Memphis.

Lee and Tennessee Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey are named as defendants because they have supervised and enforced the law related to birth certificates and transgender individuals, according to the lawsuit. Lee and Piercey declined to comment.

Gore, now a Southern regional organizer at the Transgender Law Center at Southerners on New Ground, was assigned the sex of male at birth and identifies as female. Her transgender status has been revealed when she has sought employment, and as a result she was subjected to "deeply personal and invasive" questions, the lawsuit says.

"I'm just not as comfortable sharing my transgender status with complete strangers," Gore said Tuesday.

Having to show a birth certificate with an inaccurate gender has dissuaded her from pursuing new employment and discouraged her from pursuing higher education at times, she said.

"Here in the U.S., particularly in the South, black trans women face a lot of fear of violence," Gore said. "Not having documents that fully represent who I am, a black woman, puts me in more danger. It also puts me in situations where my economic status is at risk."

Tennessee's birth certificate policy contributed to Scott delaying college for a semester, according to the lawsuit. To obtain a high school transcript for enrollment, he needed to show a birth certificate. As a result, he was "outed" as transgender and had to provide "unnecessary explanations" for identification discrepancies. The delayed process meant he was unable to enroll in the first semester and nearly lost his scholarship, the lawsuit said.

A third plaintiff, identified as L.G., a Tennessee native and a resident of Kentucky, had difficulty changing the gender identity on her driver's license because of lack of awareness from the Tennessee Department of Safety and the birth certificate policy, according to the lawsuit. When she was involved in a traffic accident, she had to explain her transgender status to a police officer and was asked "invasive and uncomfortable questions," the lawsuit said.

Changing her gender on her driver's license could have been less frustrating and humiliating if her birth certificate reflected her accurate gender, the lawsuit said.

Marisa Richmond, a former president of the Tennessee Transgender Coalition, said the organization has attempted to change the vitals record policy, enacted in 1977, through legislative action for years, but those attempts have been unsuccessful.

"It is time that transgender people born in Tennessee are treated with respect and dignity and that their lives are now whole and complete," Richmond said.

Reach Jamie McGee at 615-259-8071 and on Twitter @JamieMcGee_.