Wyoming Just Became the 9th State to Ban Gender Marker Changes on Driver’s Licenses. No One Noticed.

Wyoming’s new secret driver’s license policy shows Republicans’ efforts to restrict trans people’s rights are cruelty for the sake of cruelty.

The Wyoming State Capitol in Cheyenne | Image: Wikimedia Commons

This year has marked an unprecedented escalation in Republicans’ attacks against trans people’s documents, and already, 5 more states have moved to restrict trans people’s ability to change their gender markers. Since January, 2 more states—Idaho and South Dakota—have been reported to have banned amendments to trans people’s birth certificates, while another 4—Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, and Oklahoma—have banned gender changes on driver’s licenses.

But not all of them have done so publicly. Indiana implemented a similar policy through regulations and received little attention until the ban was finalized in February. Iowa did the same in November of last year, and in 2024, Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, Montana, and Texas all adopted more restrictive policies—or in Texas’ case, an outright ban—with little to no warning or announcement. While it only took a few days for these restrictions to be reported, others, especially more recently, have slipped under the radar for a lot longer. In March, Transitics was the first to report that Idaho had actually implemented an ID ban two months prior, something that was done so quietly that not even Idaho Republicans knew to brag about it.

Now, Transitics has confirmed that Wyoming quietly implemented two separate bans of its own.

This story actually starts 6 years ago, with the 2020 Wyoming Supreme Court case MH v. First Judicial District Court of Laramie County. There, in a 4-1 decision, the court affirmed that gender changes to birth certificates were legal and held that state courts had the authority to issue court orders for those amendments. It’s worth noting that the lone dissent in MH—who argued the gender amendment policy was illegal—was Keith Kautz, who is now Wyoming’s attorney general.

However, in 2025, after the passage of the “Wyoming What is a Woman Act,” a district court denied a different trans woman’s petition for a gender change, kicking off another lawsuit that is once again before the state Supreme Court. As a result of the district court’s decision, the Wyoming Department of Health issued an emergency rule last November that temporarily repealed the regulation allowing trans people to obtain accurate birth certificates by submitting a court order—a policy that had been in place since 1993. Then, in mid-March, that new rule was permanently adopted.

Because the state remained silent on the issue and got no local media coverage over its proposal, the DOH received no public comments during the rulemaking process. In other words, the ban was implemented entirely unopposed. Local media didn’t pick up on it while covering the court case earlier this month, either.

Once that rule took effect, the state decided to secretly make another change, this time to its driver’s license policy. Speaking to two employees at the Wyoming Department of Transportation, Transitics has confirmed that the state now requires an amended birth certificate for gender changes, which, as previously established, the state will not issue. Like in Idaho, Indiana, and Iowa, this functionally prohibits most trans people in the state from obtaining accurate identification. Additionally, the state will revert any previous changes upon renewal unless the trans person also changed their birth certificate.

Prior to this, in June 2019, the DOT—entirely on its own volition—began requiring that trans people submit a medical provider’s statement confirming their gender identity in order to change their gender marker. Given that Wyoming is the most conservative state in the country, this was a surprisingly progressive policy. Among red states, it was only matched by Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, and West Virginia; of these four, only North Dakota adopted its policy without any sort of legal pressure.

But now, Wyoming has become the 9th state to ban gender marker changes on driver’s licenses and the 5th this year alone. And once Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves signs SB 2322, that number will climb to 10. Thus, for the first time in 50 years, the number of states that ban gender marker changes on birth certificates and driver’s licenses will be equal. Just three years ago, those figures were 4 and 0, respectively. Here’s a map of current driver’s license policies:

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

That said, Wyoming isn’t a stranger to secretly implementing anti-trans policies. In 2025, the state was one of the three that banned Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care with no prior warning. And this entirely ignored the lack of political will to do so at the time: the state’s GOP supermajority, despite having the opportunity last year and passing numerous other anti-trans bills, only passed a formal Medicaid ban this year.

Taken together, these actions blatantly circumvent the democratic process. They’re carried out with the intent of suppressing trans people’s limited ability to push back against their rights being taken away, and unfortunately, it seems to be working.

But it also reveals something else: Wyoming Republicans aren’t doing this to score political points. If they were, they’d be bragging about it like many other states do—and like Governor Mark Gordon did when he signed the state’s ban on care for trans youth despite purportedly believing it to “stray into the personal affairs of families.” Instead, their actions have shown that they truly get nothing out of it; meanwhile, trans people have everything to lose.

It’s cruelty for the sake of cruelty. They’re just hoping they won’t have to look trans people in the eye as they continue to strip our rights.