A transgender woman’s successful battle with the state to correct her birth certificate will be the topic of a panel discussion at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 18, in the Bone Student Center Spotlight Room.

Tori Kirk sued the State of Illinois to compel them to change the gender marker on her birth certificate. The state initially refused to do so because state officials refused to recognize sexual reassignment surgeries that were not performed by a surgeon licensed to practice medicine in the United States.

Kirk will be joined on the panel by John Knight, director of the Gay and Lesbian Rights Project for the ACLU of Illinois. The ACLU took on Kirk’s case, which included two other transgender plaintiffs who had been unsuccessful in getting gender markers changed on their certificates.

The event, sponsored by the Advocacy Council for Human Rights and the Illinois State University Triangle Association, is free and open to the public.