Transgender Texans blocked from changing sex on drivers licenses

Starting Tuesday, transgender Texans are no longer able to change the sex on their driver's license, according to a new state Department of Public Safety (DPS) policy. 

“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,” a spokesperson with the department wrote to The Hill. 

KUT Texas first reported on the change announced through an internal policy email within the Department of Public Safety. 

Before the policy change, Texans could change the sex on their driver's license if they had a valid court order. However, the DPS spokesperson wrote that state Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) “raised concerns regarding the validity of court orders being issued.” 

The spokesperson added that DPS and other government agencies are not “parties to the proceedings that result in the issuance of these court orders and that 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.” 

Under the new rule, the department has also asked employees to send copies of documentation requesting the names of those seeking updates to a special email address with the subject line “Sex Change Court order.” 

The ACLU of Texas slammed the decision, with ACLU of Texas LGBTQIA+ staffer Ash Hall saying the policy “jeopardizes trans people's health and safety.” 

“The Department of Public Safety has a responsibility, as stated in its own name, to keep all Texans safe. This policy does the opposite. Not having accurate driver's licenses jeopardizes trans people's health and safety — by potentially outing us and exposing us to discrimination, harassment, and violence,” Hall wrote in a statement. “State agencies can’t ignore court orders nor is DPS allowed to collect or share people’s personal information for political aims.”

“This relentless targeting of transgender Texans is yet another alarming attack on our privacy, safety, and dignity. Trans people deserve to live free from persecution in Texas and everywhere else,” they add. 

According to the ACLU of Texas’s media team, the organization is “monitoring the situation at the time” and considering “all options,” which may include a lawsuit to block the policy. 

Equality Texas also denounced the decision with the organization's communications director, Jonathan Gooch, saying that Paxton’s efforts to “scrape data about trans people” are “concerning.” 

“Accurate identification is such a vital part of anybody's life, we use IDs to drive to vote to open a bank account. So having an ID that reflects your identity is a basic dignity that a lot of people take for granted,” he said. 

Paxton has tried to get data from DPS about trans Texans before. In 2022, Paxton sought information from the agency about trans-Texans and requested changes to their licenses, according to The Washington Post. 

Texas, and other conservative states, have increased legislation targeting trans people in their state. Earlier this year, the state’s top court upheld a law that bans parents from seeking gender-affirming care for minors. 

According to the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit organization that tracks LGBTQ laws, twenty-four other Republican-led states have passed laws similarly restricting care. Courts in some states — like Montana, Ohio, Arkansas and Florida — have blocked those laws.