‘X’ marks the ID

Sanders grabs political pocket change

Gov. Sarah Sanders stood up against a matter she described as “nonsense” last week.

We’ll provide details so that readers don’t get confused about what nonsense at the state Capitol Sanders was all worked up about. For the record, it wasn’t a lectern.

It turns out about 500 of Sanders’ 3 million constituents hold driver’s licenses or state IDs that don’t indicate whether the holder is male or female. Way back in 2010, the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, apparently trying to advise staff how to navigate a difficult issue, put out a memo allowing placement of an “X” on IDs for people who didn’t want to mark either “male” or “female.”

If you want to descend into a heated discussion about transgender or LGBTQ+ politics, here’s your chance. Take Sanders’ bait. The move was, for Sanders, a way of scoring some political points without much in the way of political risk.

“Only women give birth, men shouldn’t play women’s sports, and there are only two genders,” Sanders declared. “As long as I’m governor, Arkansas state government will not endorse nonsense.”

Again, not about a lectern. With Sanders’ pronouncement, we couldn’t help but think of all those clerks at revenue offices across the state, where people take a number and wait … and wait … for the privilege of paying state government for a document. It’s not hard to imagine back in 2010 why the “X” option was quietly put into effect.

Those clerks aren’t policymakers. They’re not looking for an argument over gender and identities. They just want to make sure they follow the rules in filling out the forms. So, the question apparently came up in 2010: What if the applicant doesn’t want to declare “male” or “female”? According to a DFA spokesman, an agency leader issued a one-sentence directive that led to the use of an “X” when an applicant declined the other two options.

Does anyone view “X” as an indicator of any gender? Or, recognizing the minuscule number of licenses or IDs it affected, perhaps the agency chose “X” as a placeholder so clerks could get their jobs done without making a big deal out of anything. An “X” simply avoided a debate that’s not particularly suited for a revenue office counter.

Now it’s left to those front-line clerks to reflect Sanders’ defiant declaration.

Perhaps no issue is too small for a governor craving national attention with little political risk.