Is Texas using driver's license data to track transgender residents?

"The state of Texas is still collecting data on people who've tried to change the gender marker on their driver's licenses - and officials still aren't saying why this is happening or how the information will be used. The Texas Department of Public Safety, which issues licenses, "has amassed a list of 110 people who tried to update their gender between August 2024 and August 2025," according to The Texas Newsroom."

""No Texan should unknowingly have their personal information collected, especially when those who are collecting it are unable or unwilling to say why they are collecting it," Texas House LGBTQ Caucus Chair Jessica González said in a statement to The Advocate. "Trans and nonbinary Texans are consistently targets of harmful government overreach, hateful rhetoric, and violence, simply because they live authentically. This unnecessary collection of personal information is dangerous and sets a horrible precedent of state-sanctioned surveillance that can, and will, be used by [Gov.] Greg Abbott against any of our Texan neighbors, should he decide to.""

""The state collecting this information raises a lot of red flags, not just in terms of people's privacy and ability to exist not under a magnifying glass," Landon Richie, policy coordinator at the Transgender Education Network of Texas, told The Texas Newsroom. He wonders "how this information will be leveraged in terms of drafting and""

Texas Department of Public Safety has recorded attempts to change driver's license gender markers, documenting 110 tries between August 2024 and August 2025. The state suspended routine gender-marker changes in August 2024, allowing changes only to correct errors. Officials have declined to explain the purpose of collecting or how the data will be used, and earlier reporting noted 42 documented attempts as of March. Advocates express concern about privacy, potential state surveillance, and the risk this data collection poses to trans and nonbinary people amid a climate of targeted rhetoric and policy actions.

Read at Advocate.com