DOJ Proposes Rule Forcing Trans Gun Buyers to Mark 'Biological Sex' Under Penalty of Perjury

The Department of Justice this week submitted for public comment a proposed rule that would change how the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives processes firearms purchases. On its face, the change is a single line: ATF Form 4473, the document every legal gun buyer in the United States fills out at point of sale, would have its sex field redefined to require “biological sex” rather than the buyer’s legally recognized gender. The accompanying preamble makes clear what is actually being proposed.

Buyers who select a sex marker that does not match what the federal government considers their birth-recorded sex would, under the rule, be subject to the existing federal penalties for false statements on Form 4473 — penalties that can carry up to five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.

In other words: a trans person who has updated their driver’s license, passport, and Social Security record under previous administrations and now buys a firearm using their legally recognized sex marker could be charged with perjury for doing so. The DOJ filing cites Executive Order 14168, the order signed on January 20, 2025 declaring that the federal government recognizes only two sexes, “male and female,” as fixed at birth.

What the rule actually changes

Form 4473 has had a sex field for decades. Until this rule, buyers were instructed to indicate their sex consistent with the gender on their government-issued identification. The new instruction would override that. Per the proposed text, the form would specify that “sex” means “biological sex as determined at the time of birth,” and would warn that misstatement is a federal crime.

This matters for two practical reasons.

First, in dozens of states, trans Americans hold driver’s licenses or state ID cards that reflect their legal gender — often after court orders, doctor’s letters, or extensive paperwork. Under the proposed rule, presenting that ID to a federally licensed firearms dealer and filling in a sex field that matches the ID would, depending on what the ATF later determines was the buyer’s “biological sex,” constitute perjury.

Second, federal firearms dealers — who are not document examiners and have no legal authority to second-guess a customer’s stated identity — would be put in the position of either refusing sales they have no clear basis to refuse, or processing forms the DOJ may later argue are fraudulent.

The DOJ filing acknowledges this awkwardness in passing and says the agency expects to “issue further guidance” on dealer responsibilities.

The civil rights response

The ACLU, the National LGBTQ Task Force, and Lambda Legal each issued statements within hours of the rule’s publication characterizing it as a felony trap rather than a recordkeeping correction. The Task Force described the rule as designed to “criminalize the routine act of buying a legal product” and said it would chill trans Americans’ access to a constitutional right.

The Second Amendment community is, as it often is on issues like this, divided. The Pink Pistols, the longest-running LGBTQ+ firearms organization in the country, called the proposed rule “an active threat to the Second Amendment rights of our members.” Several conservative gun rights groups have not commented.

Legal experts told The Trace and other firearms-policy outlets that the rule is almost certainly headed to court the moment it is finalized. The combination of an executive order, a rule predicated on it, and a chilling effect on a constitutional right is a familiar litigation pattern — and one the federal courts have been active on.

Where this fits in the broader pattern

This is the latest in a long series of administrative actions flowing from EO 14168. Federal employee benefits have been narrowed. Passport sex markers are no longer being updated. The Bureau of Prisons was ordered to house trans women in men’s facilities until a federal judge in Oregon enjoined parts of that policy in April. HUD has rolled back trans-inclusive shelter rules. The Department of Education has opened Title IX investigations into colleges that admit trans women.

The firearms rule is administratively narrower than any of those — it changes one form — but it is structurally similar in design: take an existing federal process, redefine a single term to exclude trans recognition, and let the criminal-penalty infrastructure already attached to that process do the rest of the work.

What happens now

The proposed rule enters a public comment period. Civil rights organizations and Second Amendment groups are expected to file extensive comments. Several state attorneys general have already signaled they will challenge a final rule in court, and at least one trans veterans’ organization is preparing to seek pre-enforcement injunctive relief on First and Second Amendment grounds.

Trans Americans who lawfully own firearms today are, under current law, in no different position than they were last week. The rule has not been finalized. ATF Form 4473 still reads as it has read for years. But the proposed rule, if implemented, would change the calculus of every future purchase — and would do so in a way that turns a routine transaction into a potential federal felony for a class of citizens defined entirely by who they are.

That is the part that civil rights groups are warning about. The federal courts will get the next word.