Texas AG says courts can’t force state agencies to update trans people’s IDs

[Jessica_Rose]

Texas AG says courts can't force state agencies to update trans people's IDs

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/texas-ag-says-courts-can-t-force-state-agencies-to-update-trans-people-s-ids/ar-AA1AWDoH?ocid=BingNewsSerp

Story by Jo Yurcaba (15 March 2025)

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton declared Friday that state court orders to change the sex markers on Texas birth certificates, driver's licenses and other state-issued IDs are no longer valid.

State agencies have already prohibited transgender people from changing the sex markers on their birth certificates and driver's licenses through internal policy changes last year. Paxton's new directive requires them to go further and revert back any sex marker changes that were the result of court orders. The directive is the first of its kind nationwide and marks yet another escalation in the state's nearly decadelong effort to restrict the rights of trans people.

"There are only two sexes, and that is determined not by feelings or 'gender theory' but by biology at conception," Paxton said in a statement Friday. "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."

Ash Hall, an LGBTQ policy and advocacy strategist for the ACLU of Texas, said nonbinding legal opinions, like Paxton's, cannot supersede court orders.