It is not uncommon for an individual to seek and be granted a name or gender marker correction in another state that they then want to use to update their Louisiana birth record. While full faith and credit ensures that the foreign judgment is recognized in Louisiana, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that full faith and credit does not guarantee that a foreign judgment is enforceable in Louisiana.1 To make a foreign judgment enforceable in Louisiana, you must first request that the judgment be made executory. In this way, a Louisiana judge will recognize, approve, and accept the judgment of the foreign court and essentially repeat that judgment, thereby making it enforceable in Louisiana courts.
In 2022, after years of accepting this executory process to enforce foreign name and gender corrections, Vital Records has changed its position. Relying on Fifth Circuit precedent,2 the office now refuses to act on the judgment of a Louisiana court if the underlying foreign judgment does not comport with the requirements of Louisiana’s name and gender marker correction statutes. As a result, clients should be advised that pursuing this process to enforce a name or gender marker correction has a far more questionable rate of success than other options. For many, however, it is the only path possible as surgery is not medically possible or desired for all people as part of their transition and is not legally required in all states.