‘I Don’t Feel Safe.’ Trans Texans Worry After ID Policy Change

Brayden Hunter Hervey’s court date was three days too late. The 38-year-old Texas resident was in the midst of applying for a gender marker update—a process he started in May—when a new Texas policy barring transgender people from changing their gender markers on their state IDs went into effect on Aug. 20.  

The change, which was quietly made by the Texas Department of Public Safety without any notice, has left many in the trans community in Texas confused and frustrated. “It made me… disappointed in society,” says Hervey, who was hoping to obtain a court order from a Texas judge to present to the Department of Public Safety, as per the previous gender marker update policy. “I don't understand [how] a person's gender affects the next person.” Hervey says that during his virtual court hearing on Aug. 23, the judge advised him to put his pursuit of a gender marker update on pause, calling it “dangerous” and saying that she wasn't sure what the state was going to do with the data it is gathering on people seeking these changes.

Trans Texans aren’t the only ones without recourse to get a government ID that matches their gender identity; Texas is one of a number of states that have or are considering similar policies. The ACLU legislative tracker found at least 16 bills introduced this legislative year in states from Florida to Iowa that would bar access for trans people to get IDs that match their gender identity.

Proponents of the policies say state IDs should only reflect a person’s sex at birth, and have sought to remove nonbinary as a possible gender marker. But IDs are essential for transgender people to feel safe in everyday lives, advocates say. “We use our IDs for everything—to vote, to open a bank account—and having an ID that matches who you are is just so simple,” says Johnathan Gooch, director of communications at Equality Texas. ​​This year the stakes could be particularly high: Joelle Bayaa-Uzuri Espeut, director at The Normal Anomaly Initiative, a Black LGBTQ+ nonprofit, says she’s concerned about transgender Texans being comfortable voting with their IDs in November.

“[These are] the beginning steps of trying to eradicate us as a people in Texas, making it harder for us to change our gender markers and our names, which a lot of times, is done out of safety for a lot of trans people,” says Mya Wesley, a 32-year-old Texan who is considering leaving her home state given the recent policy changes. “I don't feel safe here in Texas, especially as a Black trans woman.” 

Texas has the second largest LGBTQ+ population in the country, according to the nonpartisan think tank Public Policy Institute of California. It’s also home to more than 125,000 transgender adults. The latest moves there come amid a nationwide wave of laws affecting trans people: This year marked a record-breaking year for anti-trans legislation, with more than 650 bills introduced in 2024, according to the independent research organization Trans Legislation Tracker, compared to 615 bills in 2023. 

Read More: As Texas Targets Trans Youth, a Family Leaves in Search of a Better Future

In Texas last week, the state stopped letting trans people update their gender markers on their birth certificates by modifying the birth certificate correction form, the Transgender Education Network of Texas first reported. The Texas Department of State Health Services confirmed to TIME that it is no longer changing sex on birth or death certificates based on court orders due to “recent public reports have highlighted concerns about the validity of court orders purporting to amend sex for purposes of state-issued documents.” 

Under the new gender marker update directive, the Department of Public Safety asked employees to send requests for gender marker updates to a specific email, according to an internal email obtained by KUT News, stoking concerns about the possible creation of a database of transgender people. 

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has previously attempted to obtain information regarding transgender individuals. In 2022, his office requested data on how many Texans had changed their gender marker on their licenses in the past two years, though the request was denied by the Texas Department of Public Safety. The Attorney General’s Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

“The surveillance is especially alarming because there was no notice of it,” says Gooch. “So people who were already moving through the process to update their gender markers were involuntarily subsumed into this surveillance project by the Attorney General, having their birth certificates or whatever primary documents they were using to update their gender marker along with their court order and their driver's license, scanned and sent to this email address.”

Christen Valentine, a 34-year old Texas resident, says the trans community thinks surveillance is part of the point of the ID policy. “I think being scared is exactly what they want,” says Valentine. “The thing about it is us, as trans people, [is] we’ll always have fear. Fear is something that we carry. We honestly carry it on our backs every day.”

Valentine has considered moving from the state in light of the latest policies, but wants to feel she has agency in the choice. “I cannot allow somebody to take me away from something when I'm not ready,” she says. “You're not going to force me out. Now, when I'm ready and if I want to leave, yes, but not just because you say so.”