In the Austin Free Press, I wrote about Ken Paxton’s efforts to shut down the ability of transgender people to update driver’s licenses, state identification, and birth certificates. He’s also collecting a list of people who try to update their documentation. I spoke with local trans folks to get their reaction, and find out how they’re fighting back:
Austin’s trans community is girding itself to fight back legally – and on the catwalk – against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s efforts to stop transgender and gender nonconforming Texans from updating their genders on state identification documents.
On Sunday, the Local Queer Foundation is organizing to help its community apply for passports to thwart Paxton’s draconian measures to collect the names of anyone asking the state for a gender update, said Caleb Armstrong, a founder of the Austin nonprofit.
“I think it’s very dangerous, and people are scared, mostly because having mismatched documents can affect their work, their ability to get on a plane, or to show someone who they are,” Armstrong told the Austin Free Press.
Until last month, trans Texans could update the name and gender on their driver’s licenses or other state records by presenting the Texas Department of Public Safety with a court order. A similar process existed for updating birth certificates through the Department of Vital Statistics. That changed in August, when DPS began refusing court orders for gender marker changes, under orders from Paxton. Reports soon surfaced of the state refusing to update birth certificates, too.
The Office of the Attorney General email ordering DPS to halt updating gender markers, obtained by the Texas Tribune on August 21, also directed officials to scan any gender-related court orders that they received and to submit them via email under the subject line “Sex Change Court Order.”
Those actions have had a chilling effect on the trans community, advocates told Austin Free Press.
The name gathering is “alarming given that we know Ken Paxton tried to get data about transgender Texans. . . when he requested data from the Department of Public Safety about people who had updated their gender markers” in 2022, said Johnathan Gooch, communications director for Equality Texas, a nonprofit which supports LGBTQ+ state residents.
Back then, DPS did not have sufficient resources to process Paxton’s request, Gooch said. “DPS said they didn’t have a way to collect that data,” he said, but now, with orders to document people who have a court order, “they’ve created a system that does just that.”
