(The Center Square) – Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a legal opinion finding that state district courts do not have the constitutional authority to direct government agencies to change a person’s biological sex on government-issued identification documents, including driver’s licenses, birth certificates, and ID cards that is contrary to a person’s biology.
He issued the opinion in response to a request from Texas Department of Public Safety Director Col. Freeman Martin. Martin requested an opinion on the validity of district court orders directing the DPS and the Department of State Health Services to amend a person’s biological sex on government-issued documents, noting that DPS “may have altered … government sex records” to comply with court orders.
The short answer is that district courts do not have the jurisdiction to issue ex parte sex-change orders, Paxton’s 19-page opinion states. He cites multiple court rulings, state statutes and constitutional constraints of jurisdictional bounds.
“Directing these agencies to change the contents of driver’s licenses and birth certificates suspends the longstanding statutory directive that both agencies oversee the fixed contents of these documents. … The face of these orders instead reveals that DPS and DSHS are directed to violate the very statutes they are bound to obey,” the opinion says.
Paxton’s opinion concludes that the “‘judicial power’ endowed to district courts does not countenance ex parte orders directing state agencies to amend a person’s biological sex on driver’s licenses or birth certificates. The underlying proceedings are coram non judice, and the resulting orders are void. State agencies must immediately correct any unlawfully altered driver’s licenses or birth certificates that were changed pursuant to such orders.”
The opinion also directs state agencies to correct and reverse any documents they may have altered related to gender. “Prior ‘corrections’ should be reversed because the underlying proceedings and orders are coram non judice, and there can be no proof of a ‘gender’ or ‘sex’ change that requires correction on these facts,” the opinion states.
State agencies “must correct any unlawfully altered driver’s licenses or birth certificates that were changed as a result of the non-legally binding judicial orders,” Paxton said in a statement on Friday.
He also reaffirmed what Gov. Greg Abbott has argued and declared during his State of the State Address in January: the state of Texas only recognizes two genders: male and female. When discussing this in the context of public schools, Abbott said, “any educator who discusses gender-transitioning with a student should be fired.”
He also directed the Texas Education Agency to investigate a Houston high school after an employee reportedly coached a teenage girl on how to “socially transition” without the consent of her parents, against her parents’ wishes and in violation of state law.
In his joint address to Congress, President Donald Trump also said that there are only two genders: male and female. He also issued executive orders prohibiting biological men from competing in women’s sports and biological boys from competing in girls’ sports. In his speech, he highlighted how efforts by teachers to secretly transition children are a form of child abuse.
“Under Texas law, all licensed professionals who have direct contact with children– including doctors, nurses, and teachers – could be subject to criminal penalties for failure to report such child abuse,” Abbott said on Thursday.
Paxton agrees, arguing, “There are only two sexes, and that is determined not by feelings or ‘gender theory’ but by biology at conception.
“Radical left-wing judges do not have jurisdiction to order agencies to violate the law nor do they have the authority to overrule reality. In Texas, we will follow common sense and restore any documents that were wrongfully changed to be consistent with biology.”
