REAL ID requirements among policies difficult for transgender, nonbinary Arkansans to navigate

Gender-nonconforming Arkansans might not meet the state’s requirements to obtain a REAL ID in order to board flights or enter certain federal buildings, which is a week away from being required by federal law.

Applicants for REAL IDs need to provide the Department of Finance and Administration with four different forms of identification:

• A current driver’s license, state-issued ID, or school or work ID as proof of identity
• A passport or birth certificate as proof of legal presence in the United States
• A government-issued social security card
• Two documents providing proof of address, such as utility bills or bank statements, issued within the last six months

The documents “all have to sync up,” Finance Secretary Jim Hudson said last week.

Transgender and nonbinary Arkansans might have changed their names or gender information on some but not all legal documents, and state policies have made it difficult for these groups of people to obtain documents that accurately reflect who they are, advocates say. Birth certificates can be legally altered, and until this year, the federal government allowed gender-neutral information on U.S. passports.

“The government has played politics with people’s lives and upended people’s ability to accurately and properly identify themselves,” said Holly Dickson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas. “This has created much chaos and turmoil for no good reason while making life harder and more unsafe for all of us.”

Last year, the ACLU of Arkansas led a lawsuit against the DFA’s decision to stop issuing gender-neutral driver’s licenses. The case was dropped after Arkansas officials permanently adopted the new policy, which prohibits the use of an “X” to indicate someone’s gender in place of “M” or “F.”

Arkansans urge state finance department not to reverse gender-neutral driver’s license policy

Several transgender and nonbinary Arkansans, including Maggs Gallup of Little Rock, urged the finance department to maintain the previous policy, which had been in place for 14 years. Gallup said in an interview Monday that they are putting off obtaining a REAL ID in case doing so requires the state to remove the X gender marker from their driver’s license.

Hudson told lawmakers that a driver’s license is “not a platform for speech” and “not a platform for personal identity.” Gallup disagreed, saying their gender-neutral ID is important to them and putting incorrect information on an ID is “a deeply incongruent thing to do.”

“In an ideal world, it would be great to have the state and officials recognize our gender,” Gallup said. “They don’t get to determine who we are, no matter what letters we put on our IDs.”

REAL IDs began with a law passed by Congress in 2005 as a response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Instituting REAL IDs statewide “will help fight terrorism and reduce identity fraud,” according to the finance department website.

The federal Transportation Security Administration accepts passports in place of REAL IDs as identification to board a flight. Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a well-known transgender advocate who lives in Little Rock, said last week on Facebook that she was initially denied access to a flight because she has an X on her driver’s license, but she was allowed to board after displaying her passport containing a male gender marker.

Griffin-Gracy is 78 years old and gender-nonconforming, and she was present at the 1969 Stonewall riot between LGBTQ+ people and police in New York City. In her Facebook video, she expressed disbelief that her passport was accepted even though she did not appear masculine. She also said “we the people” should “stand up and fight” President Donald Trump’s administration, which does not recognize gender-neutral IDs.

Gallup said they are also concerned about potential limits on travel, both domestic and international, with or without a REAL ID. Their teenage child is old enough to learn to drive but is putting off obtaining a learner’s permit because of potential bureaucratic obstacles due to their gender-nonconforming identity, Gallup said.

Bill regulating transgender Arkansans’ bathroom use heads to House despite public pushback

“This is just one part of a larger, really complicated network of new rules and legislation that are challenging to navigate” for transgender and nonbinary Arkansans, Gallup said.

State lawmakers and Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders approved a law this month that will allow Arkansans to sue for damages if they encounter someone in a bathroom, changing room, shelter or correctional facility who does not align with the “designated sex” of the space.

The state has also enacted laws in the past few years that ban transgender girls from playing girls’ sports, require public school students to use bathrooms that match their gender assigned at birth, regulate pronoun use in schools and allow doctors who provide transgender minors’ health care to be sued for medical malpractice.