INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) does not have to issue a nonbinary option on driver’s licenses and identification cards, per an Indiana Court of Appeals ruling on Tuesday.
The BMV began recognizing a third gender on licenses with an “X” — meaning “not specified” — in 2019, under an administrative rule. But the next year, then-Attorney General Curtis Hill released an advisory opinion saying the agency didn’t have the authority to do so.
In response, the BMV then halted the practice and 13 nonbinary Hoosiers sued. A Monroe County trial judge ruled against the agency, forcing it to reinstate its prior policy of issuing driver’s licenses with an X. Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office then appealed the case to the Indiana Court of Appeals.
The trial court decision was reversed unanimously by a panel of three state appellate judges on Tuesday, remanding the case with instructions to dissolve the injunction against the BMV and enter summary and declaratory judgments for the agency consistent with the opinion.
“Until the General Assembly determines otherwise, we hold that ‘gender’ in Title 9 of the state statutory scheme means ‘sex,’” Senior Judge Randall Shepard wrote in the opinion for the appellate court.
Read the complete Casey Smith story for the Indiana Capital Chronicle, here.
