LITTLE ROCK — A predominantly Republican panel has endorsed an Arkansas agency’s elimination of “X” as an option alongside male and female on state-issued driver’s licenses and identification cards, despite skepticism from other lawmakers about the need for the move.
The Arkansas Legislative Council’s (ALC) executive subcommittee approved the emergency rules for the new policy removing an option that had been used by nonbinary and intersex residents. The new policy also makes it more difficult for Arkansans to select the correct sex for their IDs and licenses.
The agency said it was rescinding a practice implemented in 2010 that officials say conflicted with state law and had not gone through proper legislative approval.
“As I reviewed it, it became pretty clear to me that, one, it was really not lawfully authorized,” Finance and Administration Secretary Jim Hudson told the panel. “The second is it was inconsistent with statutory law and just commonsense public policy as well.”
Arkansas is the latest among Republican states to legally define sex as strictly binary, creating bureaucratic difficulties for its citizens who do not fit that standard.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas announced Thursday that it was appealing a judge’s order blocking Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s administration from allowing transgender people to change the sex listed on their license.
At least 22 states and the District of Columbia allow “X” as an option. Only about 500 of Arkansas’ 3.1 million active state-issued driver’s licenses and IDs have the “X” designation.
Democratic lawmakers questioned the need to move quickly to change the policy. Sen. Clarke Tucker noted that the state isn’t requiring the same level of verification for other information listed on licenses, such as eye color or height.
“Why are we focused just on gender and not all of the information on driver’s licenses?” Tucker said.
The new policy requires an amended birth certificate be submitted to change the designated sex on an ID. Currently a court order is required for changing the sex on a birth certificate.
Under the new rules, the designated sex must match a person’s birth certificate, passport or Homeland Security document. Passports allow “X ”as an option. If a person’s passport lists “X,” the applicant must submit a form choosing male or female.
The emergency rules will be in place for 120 days as the department works on permanent ones that will go through a public comment process.
Arkansas has enacted several measures in recent years targeting the rights of people based on their gender. Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who has called the change common sense, signed an executive order last year banning gender-neutral terms from state documents.
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Jones named Washington Presidential Library Fellow
RUSSELLVILLE — Arkansas Tech University faculty member Dr. Kelly Houston Jones is one of 23 scholars selected as George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon research fellows for the 2024-25 academic year.
Jones, associate professor of history and graduate program director in the ATU Department of History and Political Science, will spend one month at Mount Vernon in Virginia as part of a sabbatical period during the fall 2024 semester.
“I applied for this fellowship because they have a massive collection of correspondence,” said Jones. “Mount Vernon was privately owned as a plantation until at least the 1830s, so there’s correspondence from those owners as well. There’s a ton of correspondence, documents and resources that, as a fellow at the library and the site, I can use to get a better grounding of plantation life in that era.”
Jones’ research will focus on the sometimes violent response of slave owners and other whites when enslaved people in America resisted or escaped during the 1700s and 1800s. She noted that exploring this at Mount Vernon inevitably brings up the complex relationship between the founding fathers’ stated goal of building a nation rooted in freedom while some of them were slave owners.
“Virginia seems to be a showcase for that,” said Jones. “Thomas Jefferson wrote in a pretty public way on his mixed feelings about slavery. George Washington also was conflicted about that. Now, neither of them was conflicted enough to just cold turkey stop doing it, but they both believed (slavery) would eventually fizzle out. Virginia is the original South, so if you want to understand Arkansas, you can move east and hit rewind.”
According to information provided by the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon, the fellowship program is open to U.S. citizens and international applicants. Funded opportunities are available to those researching the early American period, including academics, historians, scholars, curators, material culture/decorative arts professionals, preservationists and graduate students.
Award recipients receive housing, stipends and travel reimbursement. As part of the award, fellows have access to the resources housed in the George Washington Presidential Library and the support of trained staff. Fellows reside in a shared residence, the Richard and Helen DeVos House, located on the grounds of the library.
“They do a good job at Mount Vernon of interpreting the role of slavery and the legacy of slavery,” said Jones. “They are fearless about that. So, it’s a good model for how to intellectually be part of this while also remembering the weight of it. They do a good job of threading that.”
In addition to her research, Jones plans on gathering content at Mount Vernon that she can integrate into her classes at Arkansas Tech when she returns to the classroom in spring 2025.
“I applied for this fellowship thinking this is what sabbatical is for,” said Jones. “I want to take opportunities I normally wouldn’t otherwise. The perks are that you are there with other scholars who are asking questions that are sometimes related to yours and sometimes asking questions of the documents that are totally different. You benefit not only from the manuscript collection, but also the library resources and the intellectual life. They have the George Washington Presidential Library right there next to the scholars’ residence, so I’ll be there attending their talks, giving at least one talk and being plugged into that.”
