Indiana residents will no longer be able to change their gender marker on their driver’s licenses or state-issued IDs starting Thursday.
The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles previously allowed residents with a court-ordered gender change or physician statement to update their gender on driver’s licenses and other state-issued IDs. This policy will change Thursday, according to a notice on the bureau’s ID amendment page.
The BMV has allowed gender changes on licenses and IDs since 2009. A decade later, the agency became the sixth in the nation to have a third gender option for the marker, allowing citizens to choose between “M” for male, “F” for female or “X” for other gender identities.
The “X” option was removed six months later in September 2019 after then-Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill criticized the change, saying the policy needed legislative backing.
A group of Hoosiers sued the BMV in June 2021 over Hill’s decision and a Monroe County judge ruled in their favor in December 2022. The Indiana Court of Appeals issued a dissenting ruling April 2024, agreeing with Hill and putting an end to the legal fight for a third gender option.
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun issued an executive order on March 2025 opposing “modern gender ideology” and establishing further legal framework for the “biological dichotomy between men and women.” In the order, Braun defines terms like “sex,” saying the term “means an individual human being's immutable biological classification as either male or female” and says “gender” is synonymous with “sex.” He also instructs executive branch agencies to stop using gender neutral language like “people who menstruate” or “birthing persons.”
A proposition to remove the ability to change gender on Indiana IDs was first considered by the BMV in June 2025, before debate resurfaced in November 2025 when the agency refiled the proposal. The agency allowed a period for public comment after both filings.
Indiana BMV spokesperson Greg Dunn said in an email to the Indiana Daily Student the agency received the document notifying them of the amendment approval Jan. 13. The agency was then given 30 days to complete any internal changes needed to make the implementation process run smoothly.
Dunn said the rule change notice was first published on the BMV website Feb. 3.
Dunn said the BMV “considered all of the public comments submitted on this matter” while executing Braun’s executive order.
“The proposed rule is discriminatory, serves no rational government interest, and impedes equal access to government services as the rule will effectively bar all transgender, gender diverse, or intersex Hoosiers from obtaining credentials which accurately reflect their identity,” one person said in during a period for public comment.
LGBTQ+ advocacy group IYG first noticed the change Saturday and released a statement regarding the change Monday.
“The people of Indiana spoke clearly and repeatedly against this policy, and the BMV chose to ignore them,” IYG CEO Chris Paulsen said in the statement. “Quietly implementing a rule that puts transgender Hoosiers at risk — while offering no transparency or meaningful notice — is not governance. It’s cruelty. Our young people deserve a state that protects their safety and dignity, not one that deliberately puts them in harm’s way.”
Impacted Hoosiers will have less than a week to go to a BMV office to file the paperwork needed to change their gender marking, something IYG criticized. The Damien Center — an Indianapolis-based HIV/AIDS service organization — told its patients to act immediately if they need medical documentation to file for the change.
