Missouri agency quietly made it harder to change gender marker on driver’s licenses

It became much harder this month for Missourians to change the gender marker on their driver’s licenses following a quiet move by the state Department of Revenue.

The department, which issues state driver’s licenses, switched from requiring the signature of a physician, therapist or social worker to approve a change in gender designation to mandating documentation of gender reassignment surgery or a court order.

The shift happened earlier this month, though it was not announced publicly by the department.

The Wayback Machine, which archives web pages, shows the gender designation change request form requiring physician signoff, known as Form 5532, was available Aug. 6. The next day, the web page with the form was offline.

A spokesperson for the Department of Revenue told The Independent in a statement that “Form 5532 is no longer needed.”

“Customers are required to provide either medical documentation that they have undergone gender reassignment surgery or a court order declaring gender designation to obtain a driver license or non-driver ID card denoting gender other than their biological gender assigned at birth.”

PROMO, Missouri’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, reached out to the department after hearing that people could no longer make changes to their identification using Form 5532 and heard that “an incident” spurred the move, said executive director Katy Erker-Lynch.

According to the Movement Advanced Project, which maps states’ policies affecting LGBTQ residents, Missouri is one of 10 states with this policy. Just three states do not allow residents to change their gender markers.

The policy change occurred soon after controversy erupted earlier this month over a transgender woman who used the women’s locker rooms at a private gym in Ellisville.

State Rep. Justin Sparks, a Republican from Wildwood, told The Independent that his office “would have never even known about (Form 5532) unless the Lifetime Fitness incident had occurred.”

Sparks was among a group of elected officials who convened a press conference outside the gym Aug. 2, and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced an investigation into the incident the same day.

During a radio appearance Aug. 1, Sparks said the transgender woman “displayed a state ID describing (herself) as female.”

“We are going to get to the bottom of what happened in the Department of Revenue and that form they issued several years ago,” he said. “It was inappropriate and in my opinion, it is not legal.”

Later that evening, in a live broadcast via Facebook, he told followers that he had been in contact with the department.

“I have assurances from the Department of Revenue that they are going to change their policies and their form,” he said, promising to follow up with the department.

Sparks told The Independent that he had questions about the creation of the form, which was made in 2016 with the help of LGBTQ advocates.

“I don’t even know if the people that have used that form, if that’s even valid,” he said.

He is looking into whether or not the department is allowed to change a policy without the legislature’s direction, which would determine whether the change in 2016 and this month’s switch are authorized.

“State law does not allow them to change that (policy). That’s something that we’re looking into right now, meaning can the Department of Revenue arbitrarily change policy without legislative oversight or legislation? And to the best of my knowledge, they cannot,” he said.

The change of gender markers on state identification is not explicitly mentioned in state law. The section of Missouri state law that describes driver’s license application forms allows the department to “promulgate rules and regulations necessary to administer and enforce this section,” though they must follow normal rulemaking procedure.

Sparks felt like his initial interaction with the department was unhelpful. When he involved Bailey and state senators, he says the Department of Revenue promised to change the form.

He believes the change might have been out of appeasement, to stop them from “digging.”

Erker-Lynch had a similar impression.

“It seems the mere mention and threat of a potential investigation into the policies and practices of the Department of Revenue caused Director (Wayne) Wallingford to end a policy that worked to help people,” Erker-Lynch said. “This decision reflects a state and state departments run by fear and intimidation — not a state run to serve its residents.”

PROMO is gathering stories of those who are struggling to change their gender marker on their state identification, calling the campaign “The ID for Me.”

This story was originally published by the Missouri Independent