The state now requires medical documentation or a court order rather than just a signature from a doctor or social worker.
The state of Missouri has quietly altered the way it allows people to change their gender on their driver’s license, and now requires medical documentation of a gender-reassignment surgery or a court order rather than just a signature from a doctor or social worker.
The change appears to have been made after female members of a St. Louis-area gym raised alarms earlier this month about a biological male using the women’s locker room. The gym, Minnesota-based Life Time, said it was required by the Missouri Human Rights Act to allow the now-former member, Eris Montano, to use the women’s locker room because his driver’s license stated that his legal sex is female.
Republican state representative Justin Sparks raised concerns about the incident after receiving complaints, and called for an investigation to determine if the state issued Montano an ID based on nonfactual information. In a Facebook live video earlier this month, Sparks said he had “assurances from the Department of Revenue that they are going to change their policies and their form” for changing genders on state IDs.
The Missouri Department of Revenue previously allowed people to change their gender on their driver’s license with only the signature from a doctor, therapist, or social worker on what was known as Form 5532, according to a report by The Missouri Independent.
The form was removed from the department’s website in early August, the paper reported.
“Form 5532 is no longer needed,” Anne Marie Moy, a department spokeswoman, told National Review in an email on Tuesday. “Customers are required to provide either medical documentation that they have undergone gender reassignment surgery, or a court order declaring gender designation to obtain a driver license or nondriver ID card denoting gender other than their biological gender assigned at birth.”
Moy did not say what prompted the change in the procedure.
PROMO Missouri, a Missouri LGBTQ advocate, blasted the department on social media for “secretly” changing its procedures, and called on its leaders to “give the public answers about what caused the shift and what new alternatives will be provided.”
PROMO also launched what it’s calling “The ID For Me” campaign where transgender and nonbinary residents can report if they are have having difficulties getting their gender marker changed on identifying documents.
According to the organization, its leaders previously worked “hand-in-hand” with former Missouri Department of Revenue leaders to develop a “better and less convoluted” process for changing gender markers on state IDs, including the creation of Form 5532. The result of the work was “a step in the right direction,” the organization said.
PROMO called the department’s policy shift this month “alarming.”
“Missouri continues to prove it is a state committed to fostering the erasure of transgender, gender expansive, and nonbinary Missourians,” Katy Erker-Lynch, PROMO’s executive director, said in a prepared statement. “There was a time, just 12 years ago, when the State of Missouri sat down with trans leadership and trans allies to have dialogue about policy implications and to understand the reality facing these communities. Now, Missouri leaders act secretively and without transparency, weaponizing their positions of power to hurt those already disenfranchised.”
Sparks told the Independent that his office wouldn’t have been aware of the Form 5532 process for changing gender markers if not for the flap at Life Time. He said he doesn’t believe that Missouri law allows the Department of Revenue to change its policy around gender designations without the approval of lawmakers.
“That’s something that we’re looking into right now, meaning can the Department of Revenue arbitrarily change policy without legislative oversight or legislation? And to the best of my knowledge, they cannot,” he told the paper.
Montano, who also goes by the name Eris Discordia, had his Life Time membership terminated after he made social-media posts that company leaders deemed a threat to the posh health club’s “safety and security.” It was not clear what posts the company found concerning. Montano’s X and Facebook feeds are filled with strange musings on a variety of topics, including transitioning and living his life as a female.
Montano doesn’t appear to have commented on the state changing its procedures around gender markers on state IDs. Over the last couple of days, he has posted about robots, artificial intelligence, Donald Trump, religion, straight women, lonely men, and his upcoming 53rd birthday. “every morning that I open my window and do NOT see fire raining from the skies is a day that could use some major improvements,” he wrote on Monday.
In early August, Missouri attorney general Andrew Bailey alerted Life Time that his office is investigating the situation involving Montano, and that the gym could face criminal and civil liabilities for allowing Montano into the women’s locker room.
“While it might be considered fashionable in certain corporate boardrooms to pretend that biology is irrelevant, the American heartland still lives in reality,” Bailey wrote to Life Time’s CEO, Bahram Akradi. “Your policies are enabling potentially criminal behavior, and I am writing to assure you that it will not continue on my watch.”
Life Time responded, saying the company “operates in scrupulous compliance with the law in every jurisdiction it operates.” In Missouri, Life Time says it must abide by the Missouri Human Rights Act, which bars sex discrimination in bathrooms and locker rooms.