About a dozen Arkansas residents, many of whom are transgender or non-binary, urged the state Department of Finance and Administration not to reverse the state’s gender-neutral driver’s license policy during a public hearing on Friday.
March Division The policy was rescinded The law has been in place since 2010 and allows driver’s licence holders to change their gender marker without question, or to use “X” instead of “male” or “female”.
The Arkansas Legislature’s Executive Subcommittee later Approves DFA emergency rules It requires driver’s licenses and state-issued identification cards to reflect the gender listed on a person’s birth certificate.
Friday’s hearing was moderated by Paul Gehring, the Treasury Department’s deputy secretary for revenue policy and legal affairs. No elected officials or cabinet members attended.
Eleven people opposed the rule, but no one supported it.
Several speakers said the current gender designation policy, in place since 2010, has not harmed anyone. External Affairs Commissioner Jim Hudson told lawmakers in March that the new rules were meant to prevent threats to officer safety, but added that he was not aware of any threats in the 14 years.
“The real emergency that exists is [is] “When transgender people are forced to lie on their driver’s licenses and state identification cards, it causes chaos in our society,” said Tien Ester, policy coordinator for Intransitive Arkansas.
The new rules have already caused problems for the transgender community, several people said, including Estelle and Hazel Plescak, who said they completed their legal name change the same day the rules were announced.
“What this has presented me with so far is a complete bureaucratic nightmare,” Plescak said. “I’ve dealt with a lot of issues so far. [such as] I had to update my paperwork multiple times because the name didn’t match, and now the gender didn’t match either.”
Ultimately, when it comes to identifying individuals to state, law enforcement and other agencies, gender is irrelevant.
– Attorney JP Triebel
Hannah Grimmett said the new rules made it a pain to renew her expired driver’s license, which listed her as gender X. DMV officials “didn’t know what to do,” so she had to fax her birth certificate somewhere to change the gender on her ID, she said.
“When I first got my driver’s license, it was as simple as saying, ‘Hello, can you change this to X?'” Grimmett said.
Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge Patricia James said Wednesday. Litigation John Williams, general counsel for the Arkansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and a lawyer for the plaintiffs in the case, said the injunction gives Arkansans a short period of time to change the gender designation on their identification if they want to before lawmakers vote on the permanent rules that were discussed Friday.
The permanent rule must be approved by the Arkansas General Assembly and its Administrative Rules Subcommittee before it can take effect. Public comment on the rule is due to close on June 27, and the Assembly and its subcommittee are scheduled to meet in mid-July.
Along with Washington, D.C., Arkansas is one of 22 states that allows the designation X in addition to “M” and “F” on driver’s licenses.
Legal issues
rule The gender information on your driver’s license or state-issued ID must “show either ‘M’ (male) or ‘F’ (female) to match the information on your birth certificate, passport, or ID issued by the Department of Homeland Security.”
The federal government recognizes X as the gender designation on passports, and birth certificates can be legally amended. The rule allows amended birth certificates to be used as identification when applying for or renewing a driver’s license.
Attorneys JP Trivel and Richelle Brittain said at the hearing that the rule likely violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The final section of the proposed rule would allow a state’s driver services department to use other records kept by the department to amend records of unexpired driver’s licenses with a male or female gender marker instead of an X and notify the license holder accordingly.
Brittain said this “appears to be an attempt to retroactively remove X-gender markers from state records” and “is counter to the stated purpose of providing accurate information to law enforcement.”
Trivel, whose legal work includes helping LGBTQ+ people change their names and gender on legal documents, said the rule creates confusion when someone is listed as male or female on their ID but the gender is reversed.
“At the end of the day, when it comes to identifying individuals for state or law enforcement or other agencies, gender doesn’t matter,” Triebel said.
Many of Friday’s speakers, including Brittain and Estelle, also spoke out against a range of bills introduced in the state Legislature last year that would restrict the activities of transgender Arkansans. Pronouns and Bathroom Public Schools and Transgender People Access to medical care for minors.
Braelyn Smith and Mags Gallup, who also testified before the state Legislature, said it was important to speak out repeatedly, even if it was unlikely to change decision makers’ minds.
“Speaking up for those who cannot advocate for themselves [and] “It’s a responsibility that we have to have the privilege to do so,” said Gallup, a non-binary parent of a gender non-conforming child.
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