A new lawsuit is challenging the State of Arkansas’ policy shift away from gender-neutral driver’s licenses.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas filed the lawsuit on behalf of five plaintiffs Tuesday against the state Department of Finance and Administration, which said in March it was rescinding its policy allowing for a gender-neutral option on driver’s licenses. Drivers could previously list “X” on their licenses instead of choosing between male or female.
The lawsuit argues the rule was implemented without adequate notice or any opportunity for public comment, in conflict with existing Arkansas law. The ACLU says the department also has failed to demonstrate any urgent threat to public health or safety that the policy change is addressing.
In a March 7 letter to the state’s Bureau of Legislative Research, DFA Secretary Jim Hudson called the rule “necessary to ensure that individuals and organizations that rely upon identifying information contained within a driver’s license or identification card are provided with the most accurate and complete gender information” as listed on a person’s birth certificate or other official documents.
A DFA spokesperson told Little Rock Public Radio in March only 342 driver’s licenses and 174 state IDs utilized the gender-neutral option. That’s compared to 2,668,881 Arkansans with an active driver's license and 503,294 with a state ID.
The ACLU says the move specifically violates the Arkansas Administrative Procedure Act, which requires a 30-day public notice and comment period unless the rule is necessary to comply with federal law or address an imminent threat to public health or safety. Hudson had cited the same law in his reasoning for doing away with the gender-neutral ID policy, since it hadn’t been subject to public comment when it began in 2010.
“The DFA has failed to demonstrate any urgent threat to public health or safety that justifies this sudden and restrictive change in policy,” ACLU of Arkansas Legal Director John Williams said, in a statement. “Instead, their actions have created a real and immediate danger to the wellbeing of our plaintiffs and other transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people, for whom accurate identification is not just a matter of dignity, but of personal security.”
The lawsuit seeks a judgment that the emergency rule doing away with gender-neutral IDs is invalid, as well as injunctions to halt enforcement of the rule. Before the policy reversal, Arkansas was one of 22 states allowing for a gender-neutral option on state driver’s licenses.
