Is Texas using driver's license data to track transgender residents?

[Jessica_Rose ✅]

Is Texas using driver's license data to track transgender residents?

https://www.advocate.com/news/texas-collects-gender-change-requests 🔗

Trudy Ring (15 Dec 2025)

The state of Texas is still collecting data on people who've tried to change the gender marker on their driver's licenses — and officials still aren't saying why this is happening or how the information will be used.

The Texas Department of Public Safety, which issues licenses, "has amassed a list of 110 people who tried to update their gender between August 2024 and August 2025," according to The Texas Newsroom, a collaborative project of several public radio stations. August 2024 was when the state stopped allowing gender changes on licenses except to correct an error.

In March, the state had documented 42 attempts to change the gender marker. Officials wouldn't answer media questions then on the purpose of gathering this data, and they still aren't answering, The Texas Newsroom reports.

LGBTQ+ and transgender activists are concerned. "No Texan should unknowingly have their personal information collected, especially when those who are collecting it are unable or unwilling to say why they are collecting it," Texas House LGBTQ Caucus Chair Jessica González said in a statement to The Advocate. "Trans and nonbinary Texans are consistently targets of harmful government overreach, hateful rhetoric, and violence, simply because they live authentically. This unnecessary collection of personal information is dangerous and sets a horrible precedent of state-sanctioned surveillance that can, and will, be used by [Gov.] Greg Abbott against any of our Texan neighbors, should he decide to."