Texas AG Declares Court Orders Allowing Transgender ID Changes Are Invalid
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released his nonbinding legal opinion Friday, which could snowball into real political action from Gov. Gregg Abbott.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has pushed his conservative agenda targeting the health and well-being of trans people even further. The Republican declared on Friday that state court orders instructing state agencies to update sex markers are invalid. Paxton also said state agencies should go back and reverse any sex marker changes that were the result of a court order, which would affect Texas birth certificates, driver’s licenses, and other state-issued IDs. This directive is the first of its kind in the country.
Related: GOP Lawmaker Was Called Out For Misgendering Rep. Sarah McBride
“There are only two sexes, and that is determined not by feelings or ‘gender theory’ but by biology at conception,” Paxton spewed in a statement. “Radical left-wing judges do not have jurisdiction to order agencies to violate the law nor do they have the authority to overrule reality. In Texas, we will follow common sense and restore any documents that were wrongfully changed to be consistent with biology.”
This nonbinding legal opinion is not the first anti-trans directive Paxton has issued. In 2022, he declared gender-affirming care was a form of child abuse. While he has no real authority to purport that, his opinion did lead Texas Governor Gregg Abbott to issue an executive order, directing welfare agencies to investigate the parents of trans children. While the state Supreme Court did rule that Paxton and Abbott overstepped with these decisions, the investigations were allowed to continue.
Although Paxton’s directives don’t directly change anything, it is clear that he has the power to influence high-level politicians into creating real, damaging orders.
Friday’s opinion was filed in response to a request from the Texas Department of Public Safety. DPS Director Steven McCraw asked Paxton in September whether state courts had the authority to order state agencies, like DPS, to change sex markers. If not, McCraw asked whether agencies could revert the updated markers. In his request, McCraw claimed that trans Texans changing their sex marker to accurately reflect their gender was part of a “years-long and state-wide effort to alter government records.” He went on to claim that judges may approve these changes “with no scrutiny whatsoever.”
“Identifying individuals consistently and accurately is a core part of the DPS mission and has obvious implications for public safety,” McCraw concluded his request.
The truth of the matter is that a majority of the estimated 120,000 transgender people living in Texas already don’t have a state ID that matches their gender. The Movement Advancement Project reports that 68% of trans adults lack any government-issued ID that matches their name and gender identity. This order is not a matter of “public safety,” as McCraw and Paxton may want Texans, and republicans everywhere, to believe. It is simply another way to demonize the trans community and the broader LGBTQ+ community by painting queer people as deceitful individuals who need to be monitored.
Related: Judge’s Fact-Based Takedown Of Trans Military Ban Is Too Much For DOJ Lawyer To Handle
“The trans community in Texas is scared,” Equality Texas Interim CEO Brad Pritchett said in a statement. “Updating a driver’s [license] takes years of effort and legal expenses. The people going through the process to update their documents are trying to honor the law by having an ID that matches the way they live and move through the world. Now law-abiding Texans are being undermined by the state’s top lawyer attacking the validity of legal court orders from state judges.
“Ken Paxton is the lawyer for the state, his job is to interpret law, not to make it,” Pritchett continued. “So, it’s important to point out that his opinion is just that—an opinion. But if state agencies follow this directive, it will jeopardize the safety of the nearly 100 thousand trans people in the state.”
