Arkansas stops offering 'X' as an alternative to male and female on state IDs
Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders called Arkansas' decision to remove "X" as an option from state-issued driver's licenses and other IDs “common sense.”
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Arkansas will no longer allow residents to use “X” instead of male or female on state-issued driver’s licenses or identification cards, officials announced under new rules Tuesday that will also make it more difficult for transgender people to change the sex listed on their licenses and IDs.
The changes announced by the Department of Finance and Administration reverse a practice that’s been in place since 2010, and removes the “X” option that had been used by nonbinary and intersex residents. The agency has asked a legislative panel to approve an emergency rule spelling out the new process.
Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who last year signed an executive order banning gender-neutral terms from state documents, called the move “common sense.”
“As long as I’m governor, Arkansas state government will not endorse nonsense,” Sanders said in a news release.
The move is latest among Republican states to legally define sex as binary, which critics say is essentially erasing transgender and nonbinary people’s existences and creating uncertainty for intersex people — those born with physical traits that don’t fit typical definitions of male or female.
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