Texas bars transgender people from changing sex on driver’s licenses

Texas is barring transgender people from changing the sex on their driver’s licenses or state-issued IDs to reflect their gender identity.
The state will no longer allow Texans to change the sex on their licenses unless it is to fix a clerical error, according to a Texas Department of Public Safety memo leaked this week to NPR affiliate KUT. The department confirmed the policy in an email Wednesday night to The Dallas Morning News.
Previously, a person could change the sex on their ID with a court order or amended birth certificate.
Texas follows a handful of other states, including Kansas and Florida, that have issued similar policies. In both states, critics argued the policy violates people’s civil rights.
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Brad Pritchett, interim CEO of LGBTQ rights organization Equality Texas, criticized the new policy for denying transgender people the right to have a state ID that reflects who they are.
“Just like people who change their names after marriage want their correct name on their license, trans Texans want their driver’s license to reflect their gender,” he said in a written statement. “We use our IDs to navigate all areas of life, driving, voting, employment. Having an ID that reflects who you are is a basic form of dignity that many take for granted.”
An email sent to division employees also instructed them to forward copies of documentation for sex change requests to a special email address with the subject line “Sex Change Court Order,” KUT reported.
Pritchett said there is “no clear reason why this information would be useful to the DPS.” He added that “Texans will now be subject to involuntary surveillance for simply trying to update a government document.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in 2022 asked the agency for data on transgender Texans who requested changes on their licenses, according to a report in The Washington Post. The agency said it advised Paxton’s office that the data requested did not exist or could not be accurately produced, so it did not provide the requested data.
In a written statement late Wednesday, Texas DPS mentioned Paxton in its explanation of the policy change:
“The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) has recently raised concerns regarding the validity of court orders being issued which purport to order state agencies — including DPS — to change the sex of individuals in government records, including driver licenses and birth certificates. Neither DPS nor other government agencies are parties to the proceedings that result in the issuance of these court orders, and the lack of legislative authority and evidentiary standards for the Courts to issue these orders has resulted in the need for a comprehensive legal review by DPS and the OAG. Therefore, as of Aug. 20, 2024, DPS has stopped accepting these court orders as a basis to change sex identification in department records – including driver licenses.”
In recent years, transgender rights emerged as the latest culture war in Texas and across the U.S. Last year, Texas banned gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth, one of more than 20 states that adopted similar laws. It also prohibited transgender athletes from competing on college sports teams that do not align with their birth sex.
Dozens of school districts across the state, including some in North Texas, have designated which bathrooms transgender students could use, allowed teachers to use students’ biological rather than preferred pronouns and placed restrictions on how teachers could talk about gender and sexuality.