Texas AG demands state agencies revoke gender-marker changes

AUSTIN, Texas (CN) — In another escalation in his yearslong campaign against transgender Texans, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Friday ordered state agencies to undo all gender-marker changes previously issued to transgender people by judges in Texas.

The hardline Republican has been at the forefront of legal attacks against transgender people for years. During the Biden administration, Paxton led efforts to block Biden’s extensions of Title IX protections to LGBTQ+ students, as well as protections for LGBTQ+ patients in the Affordable Care Act. The attorney general’s office in 2022 tried to force state agencies to hand over data on gender-marker changes, but those efforts stalled out.

Paxton’s latest legal opinion, released Friday morning alongside a press release decrying “gender theory” and “radical left-wing judges,” goes further. Asked by state agencies in 2024 if they could make changes to gender markers without a court order, Paxton replied on Friday that in fact, even state courts do not even have the authority to make these changes.

So Paxton argues, at least. Court proceedings changing gender markers were not legally valid, Paxton says in his order, “and the resulting orders are void. State agencies must immediately correct any unlawfully altered driver’s licenses or birth certificates that were changed pursuant to such orders.”

Breaking down his logic, Paxton says court orders for gender-marker changes were all ex parte because the decisions were reached between transgender Texans and the judges approving or denying their requests. The proceedings were not adversarial, which would have given officials a chance to stop the changes.

But state agencies — which oversee these documents — should have been invited to these cases to do just that, Paxton said. Because they were not, Paxton argues the judges’ decisions exceeded their authority. His order directs state agencies to review gender markers in documents and change back any that were switched.

Paxton’s opinion on Friday raised alarms for LGBTQ+ advocates. While Paxton accuses courts of changing gender markers without adversarial legal proceedings, his order effectively does the same.

“This brazen disregard for court rulings is not an isolated incident,” Erin Reed, a prominent transgender journalist and activist, wrote of the opinion. “As Republicans continue to consolidate power at the expense of transgender people, the broader erosion of judicial authority should serve as a warning — one that extends far beyond this single policy fight.”