At the end of June, the Arkansas Supreme Court eliminated the option for Arkansas residents to use a neutral gender identification on their state ID cards. They need to specify only male or female.
This ruling reinstates a state law that banned using “X” as an option for gender identification. A lower court had blocked the bill earlier this month, arguing it would harm transgender residents.
Response
Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin, a Republican, praised Tuesday’s ruling in a public statement, saying,
I applaud the Arkansas Supreme Court’s decision staying the circuit court’s unlawful order and allowing the Department of Finance and Administration to bring its identification rules into compliance with state law [1].
Less than half of U.S. states allow “X” as a valid gender on identification forms. With Arkansas’ departure, only 21 states and Washington, D.C., maintain the policy.
Of Arkansas’ 2.6 million active driver’s licenses, just 387 had the “X” designation. The state also has 503,000 IDs, of which 167 had the “X” designation.
Lawsuit
The Arkansas ACLU had sued to end the legislation this spring, leading to the earlier court order blocking the new rule. They reasoned that by removing the ‘X’ marker option, the state would force those who do not fit into the gender binary to choose an inaccurate gender marker, resulting in potential confusion. However, they did not realize that as a person was born one sex and is trying to change that, confusion already exists.
Notes:
- ^ {Arkansas Supreme Court eliminates gender neutral option for state IDs} (go back ↩)
