When UT-Austin’s Lauren Gutterman, a professor of American and gender studies, first heard about House Bill 2549, she thought of something dark: Nazi Germany’s use of the pink triangle to identify and stigmatize LGBTQ+ people.
The recently filed bill, introduced in the Texas Legislature, would require that all state-issued IDs, including driver’s licenses and personal identification cards, list an individual’s sex as determined at birth, effectively erasing legal recognition of gender transitions.
“I think that is definitely a legitimate connection,” Gutterman said. “To have someone’s sex assigned at birth listed on their state or federal identification documents would be putting them at risk of violence and harassment. It would be a way of marking, of stigmatizing, and of making more vulnerable to attack people who are trans or gender nonconforming.”
The bill is part of a broader wave of anti-trans legislation in Texas, including last year’s bans on gender-affirming care for minors and efforts to restrict transgender athletes in sports.
This particular bill raises concerns about how the state could use ID records to track transgender individuals. In 2022, Attorney General Ken Paxton quietly instructed the Texas Department of Public Safety to compile a list of Texans who had changed their gender markers on official documents. The effort was eventually abandoned after DPS said the data either did not exist or could not be accurately produced, but it signaled an intent: The state was interested in identifying transgender residents.
“This would make it easier for the state to identify trans people. And then, who knows what comes next.” – UT-Austin Professor Lauren Gutterman
Now, Paxton’s latest legal opinion argues that Texas courts lack the jurisdiction to order changes to someone’s sex designation on state documents. His office stated that district courts had been improperly issuing orders for years that allowed transgender Texans to correct their IDs – rulings Paxton now calls “void” and unenforceable. Although an attorney general’s opinion is not legally binding, it can be used in court to support a legal argument and influence judicial decisions.
By removing any legal ambiguity, HB 2549 could give the state a clearer mechanism to invalidate past gender marker changes and flag individuals who had previously updated their documents.
“This would make it easier for the state to identify trans people,” Gutterman said. “And then, who knows what comes next?”
Texas is not alone in the effort to recognize only two genders, defined at birth. On Jan. 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that mandates that federal agencies recognize only two sexes – male and female – defined strictly by biological characteristics in infancy. Consequently, federal policies and documents, including passports, now also exclude nonbinary gender markers.
If HB 2549 becomes law, it would take effect on September 1, 2025, giving Texas time to adjust its ID application processes. However, legal challenges are almost inevitable.
Civil rights groups have already sued over similar laws in other states, arguing that such policies violate the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and could have severe consequences for transgender Texans who rely on accurate identification for housing, employment, and health care.
This article appears in March 21 • 2025.