Transgender Education Network of Texas and All In For Equality are both holding webinar sessions this week to update the community on the latest information regarding the Texas Department of Public Safety’s recent policy change rejecting all requests for gender marker changes on state driver licenses and state-issued IDs.
TENT will hold its community update and townhall at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug.27, at 7 p.m., with signup at bit.ly/update0827.
The All In For Equality webinar will be held Wednesday, Aug. 28, from 6-7 p.m. Sign up at bit.ly/aifedps. Participating with be Carter Brown with Black Trans Advocacy Coalition, Shelly Skeen with Lambda Legal, Rachel Gonzales with Human Rights Campaign, Peter Makpoulos-Senftleber with Trans Legal Aid Clinic Texas, Sofia Sepulveda with Equality Texas and Ash Hall with ACLU of Texas.
As Dallas Voice reported first on Aug. 21, DPS Driver License Division Chief Sheri Gipson sent out an interagency email on Aug. 20 ordering that “Effective immediately, the Department will not accept court orders or amended birth certificates issued that change the sex when it differs from the documentation already on file.”
Gipson also ordered employees to scan into the record all “court order sex change documentation that cannot be processed” and email the requesting person’s name and driver’s license or state ID number to “DLCourtorders@dps.texas.gov,” noting on the email subject line “Sex Change Court Order.”
The move appears to be an effort to establish a registry or database of transgender people in Texas, something that Attorney General Ken Paxton has previously asked DPS for.
— Tammye Nash