South Dakota Will Become the 11th State to Ban Gender Changes on Driver’s Licenses ‘Soon’; Trans Residents May Only Have Days to Update their Licenses

Transitics has uncovered that South Dakota is quietly preparing to implement a ban on gender marker changes ‘soon.’ Trans residents must act now to update their licenses before it’s too late.

The South Dakota State Capitol in Pierre | Image: Wikimedia Commons

Just a little over three years ago, trans people seeking to update their gender markers were facing a very different America. At the time, all 50 states allowed gender changes to driver’s licenses and other state-issued IDs, while only one, Tennessee, banned those changes on birth certificates. And although some states were more restrictive than others, the fact remained: pathways existed for every trans American to obtain documents that accurately reflected their identity—pathways that, in most cases, went back decades.

Of course, not all right-leaning states were content with this status quo, but even then, the states that sought to challenge it were few and far between. And most notably, up until this point, they had all limited their attacks to birth certificates. However, in the summer of 2023, the dam started to show signs of crumbling: Tennessee became the first state to ban legal gender changes altogether through Senate Bill 1440, and soon after, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach sued his state’s governor in hopes of following suit—kicking off a 2-year legal battle that saw a court block the state from updating gender markers until Kobach’s October 2025 loss at the state Supreme Court.

But after Florida and Texas implemented bans of their own the next year, the attacks on trans people’s driver’s licenses seemingly came to a standstill. Even as Trump imposed a trans passport ban on his first day in office, the number of states with these bans largely remained steady at 4, with Iowa replacing Kansas a month after Kobach’s defeat. Conversely, in that same 2.5-year period, the number of states with active bans on birth certificate changes had climbed from 1 to 8.

Then, the dam suddenly burst. Idaho banned gender marker changes in January. Indiana and Kansas—which additionally took the extreme step of revoking trans people’s licenses—in February. Oklahoma and Wyoming in March. Mississippi in April. In just 4 months, the number of states with these bans had quickly risen to 10, and because only two more states banned birth certificate changes, it meant that the two figures were equal for the first time in at least 50 years.

But now, Transitics has confirmed that South Dakota is enacting an ID ban of its own.

This story starts in January. Towards the end of the month, South Dakota House Speaker Jon Hansen introduced House Bill 1184, which had the stated purpose of defining ‘sex’ as ‘biological’ throughout state law by setting anatomy-based definitions for words like ‘man,’ ‘woman,’ ‘male,’ and ‘female.’ The bill, like similar laws passed in over a dozen other states, mandates that all state agencies “strictly adhere” to its definitions, and it overwhelmingly passed both of the state’s legislative chambers before being signed into law by Republican Governor Larry Rhoden on March 20th.

At the same time, a different battle was raging at the South Dakota Supreme Court, which was reviewing an appeal from a trans woman, Sigrid Kristiane Nielsen, who was denied a court order for a new birth certificate that accurately recognized her gender identity. However, on March 3rd, the court unanimously denied her petition and issued a ruling declaring that the state not only didn’t have to amend her certificate but also that it actually couldn’t in the first place. The ruling, which relied heavily on the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Skrmetti, was quickly applied to all trans people born in the state.

But following HB 1184’s passage, questions remained about whether or not the state would interpret it to ban gender changes on driver’s licenses as well. After all, although similarly-worded laws have been used to implement bans in Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, and Wyoming, other states—including neighboring Nebraska and North Dakota, as well as Alabama, Louisiana, Ohio, Utah, and West Virginia—did not ban gender marker changes despite having passed near-identical laws. Furthermore, South Dakota had already passed a law in 2025 that replaced ‘gender’ with ‘sex’ on requirements for state-issued IDs, but the state’s policy was not impacted.

Meanwhile, in April, as part of an effort to catalog gender marker policies in all 50 states for the first time, Transitics obtained a copy of the gender change policy found within the South Dakota Department of Public Safety’s employee training manual, which establishes that gender changes on driver’s licenses were allowed with a “letter from a physician stating that the applicant is undergoing gender reassignment care.” After HB 1184 became effective on July 1st, I filed a public records request seeking to resolve the uncertainty surrounding the law’s impact on the DPS. Yesterday afternoon and after significant stalling, that request was denied on the grounds that “correspondence, memoranda, and working papers are not subject to disclosure,” an exemption typically reserved for policies that are purely internal or are yet to be implemented. As these are categories the previously obtained policy wouldn’t fall into, it indicated that further investigation was needed.

Speaking to various DPS employees this morning, I was told that on July 1st, the state changed its policy to now require an amended birth certificate—which, as previously mentioned, South Dakota will no longer issue. Like with Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, and Wyoming, this creates a de facto ban on these changes for most trans people; according to the US Census Bureau, around 73% of US-born South Dakota residents were born in states that do not allow them to update their birth certificates if they are trans, and another 8% were born in states that require surgery for those amendments.

However, unlike the other four states mentioned, there is an important caveat: the policy hasn’t actually been implemented yet. DPS employees indicated that the ban, while not in place at the moment, will be enforced “as soon as [they] get word” from their superiors to do so. They also stressed that the previous requirement, which was relatively relaxed, will remain in place for the time being. As such, it appears that trans South Dakotans still have a little time to update their licenses before the state’s ban goes into effect.

It needs to be said that Florida, Idaho, Texas, and Wyoming all implemented their bans without any sort of warning. Other states, like Missouri and Oklahoma, have also recently tightened their policies without explanation. South Dakota was looking to follow their lead in enacting its ban without saying a word, a move that would’ve suddenly and permanently locked many trans residents out of having accurate identification.

So, if you are from South Dakota, you must update your license as soon as possible. To do so, you only need a note from your doctor stating that you are receiving gender-affirming care. This requirement is broad enough to include hormone replacement therapy, and the exact wording of the note, as I understand it, is left entirely up to your doctor. If you need help with or have any questions about this process, please do not hesitate to leave a comment, send me a message, or email me.

And finally, here’s a map of current gender marker policies:

For sources, tables, and more maps, head to Transitics’ CATPALM page.