KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — A transgender woman in Knox County has filed suit against Gov. Bill Lee and state Safety and Homeland Security Commissioner Jeff Long, opening a new front in the fight over a Tennessee law that bars people from changing the sex listed on their driver licenses.
The plaintiff, identified in court papers only as Jane Doe, says she was born in Illinois and amended her Illinois birth certificate in June 2026 to show her sex as female. When she then went to a Knox County driver license office to update her Tennessee license, she was turned away and told state law did not allow the change.
Her complaint argues the refusal violates the 14th Amendment and the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which generally requires states to respect the public records of other states. It asks for damages and attorney fees but does not list an amount.
The measure, which Lee signed on May 17, 2023, says Tennessee ID must show the sex a person had at birth based on anatomy and genetics, while also naming birth certificates as evidence of a person’s sex, a point the new suit leans on.
The state’s stance on licenses predates that suit. Transgender residents had been able to update the marker for close to 30 years before the Department of Safety issued an internal directive, known as DLP-302, in July 2023 ending the practice, according to a case summary posted by civil liberties lawyers who later challenged it.
Those lawyers sued the department in April 2024 in Davidson County Chancery Court on behalf of another transgender woman, also using the name Jane Doe, arguing the agency skipped required rulemaking. After a judge ordered the department to take whatever procedural steps it believed the law required, the agency held an administrative hearing in January 2025 and kept the directive in place. That case remains pending.
Neither the governor’s office nor the state safety department had publicly responded to the new lawsuit.
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