Public Comment Hearing Monday On BMV Gender Change Rule

The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles is creating a new procedure for people to change the gender on their driver’s license.

The agency will hold a public meeting Monday where people can comment on the proposed rule change.

The BMV has allowed people to change the gender listed on their driver’s license since 2009. All someone had to do is get a form signed by their physician.

But a spotlight hit that process earlier this year after the agency started allowing people to list their gender as non-binary, X.

The agency’s new rule adds a bureaucratic step. It requires a person to get a State Department of Health form signed by their physician and submit it to the Health Department. ISDH then sends back an acknowledgment it received the form. The person who wants to change the gender on their ID provides that receipt to the BMV.

The agency already tried once earlier this year to install a new rule for changing gender, but Attorney General Curtis Hill objected to it on procedural grounds.

Monday’s public comment meeting is part of the state’s administrative rule-making procedures. There’s already been pushback on the proposal from religious conservative groups.

Contact Brandon at bsmith@ipbs.org or follow him on Twitter at @brandonjsmith5.