A New Jersey state Senate panel has approved a bill which would allow the state’s health department to issue new birth certificates to intersex or trans people who have not undergone gender reassignment surgery.

Since 1984, the law in New Jersey required trans people undergo GRS before they could be issued a new birth certificate to match their gender.

The new bill would require people to undergo ‘clinically appropriate treatment for the purpose of gender transition, based on contemporary medical standards, or that the person has an intersex condition’, which means trans people who simply opt for hormone replacement therapy will be able to apply for a change in birth certificate.

Joseph Vitale, chairman of the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee, sponsored the bill on behalf of a trans constituent, saying that ‘the world is changing.’

Vitale said: ‘Birth certificates always have been a means of how we traditionally identify a person. In the transgender community, it doesn’t reflect who they are mentally, spiritually and in every other way but physically.

‘They don’t argue what they were then, but [they are] not that person now.’

Senator Sam Thompson was against the bill, but stated he supported trans rights, saying: #My concern is a birth certificate is an historical document. If you want a document saying you are a lady today, I am 100 percent for it.’

The bill was approved by the committee by a 6-2 vote, with one abstention.I t must still be approved by the full Senate before it becomes law.