The ACLU has filed suit against the state, saying Alabama discriminates against transgender people who want to change the gender designation on their driver licenses.

The suit seeks no monetary judgment but calls for the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency to drop a requirement that people show proof of gender-reassignment surgery before the gender marker can be changed.

The suit follows similar actions by the ACLU that were successful in Alaska and Michigan, and appears to come amid a general national trend of governments making it easier for transgender people to have their license designations changed.

The American Civil Liberties Union said it filed the suit about 11 a.m. Tuesday on behalf of two transgender women, Destiny Clark and Darcy Corbitt, and a third, unidentified plaintiff. In a conference call discussing the motivations for the suit, Clark and Corbitt and their advocates said that the status quo subjects people like themselves to embarrassment and even danger.

An AL.com request for comment from ALEA was pending.

"Driver licenses matter for transgender people's safety," said Gabriel Arkles, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU's LGBT and HIV Project. "Every time you show your license, you're outed as trans."

Many transgender people prefer not to advertise their status, Arkles said. But driver licenses are required at many encounters, from retail purchases to job interviews. If a license says one thing while a person's appearance says another, that person can be exposed to ridicule, accused of fraud or even targeted for discrimination, Arkles said.

Plaintiff Corbitt said she was motivated in part by a terrible experience after moving back to the state. She initially was treated with the "utmost respect and courtesy" at a Lee County license office in Opelika, but when the clerk saw the "male" designation on her license, "her friendliness died down."

"This clerk chose to humiliate me by loudly discussing my gender identity in a room full of strangers," Corbitt said. And even though she already had had her gender changed on her Social Security and her passport, she said, Alabama required proof of surgery.

"The state of Alabama does not have the right to define our identities or our worth," she said.

Clark said that she was motivated in part by a desire to clear the way for younger transgender people "so they won't have to face the embarrassment we've had to deal with."

Julie Ebenstein, senior staff attorney for the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, said that the current requirements violate transgender people's rights in multiple ways: It invades their privacy, deprives them of equal protection under the law and even hampers their ability to vote. Eighty percent of the transgender people in Alabama don't have identification that accurately reflects their gender, she said.

In September 2016, the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) issued a resource guide on gender. It said that at that time 31 states plus the District of Columbia allowed individuals to change their gender designation without proof of surgery, a court order or an amended birth certificate. Most required certification from a healthcare professional.

Fourteen jurisdictions required proof of surgery, a court order or an amended birth certificate. Out of those, Alabama was one of nine that required proof of surgery.

"The general trend in recent years is jurisdictions replacing requirements to submit proof of surgical treatment with standards that focus on the gender in which individuals live in their daily lives, as affirmed by a medical provider, mental health provider, or social worker," said the AAMVA report. It said many states also were using simplified forms that reduced the jurisdiction's potential liability for holding private medical information.

The ACLU filed a similar suit in Alaska in 2011. In 2012, the state dropped the proof of surgery requirement.

The organization also filed a suit against Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson in 2015. Johnson had implemented a rule that the state had to see an amended birth certificate before it would change the gender on other documents. The court found that the rule created a disparity: Residents born in Michigan could get their birth certificates changed, but some of those born in other states could not, leaving them with no recourse. Johnson dropped the requirement, rendering the suit moot.

According to the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Consular Affairs, getting the gender changed on a passport requires medical certification that a person is in the process of, or has had, "appropriate clinical treatment for gender transition." This doesn't have to spell out whether the treatment was surgical or not: The Bureau says that "Your physician determines what appropriate clinical treatment is."

That policy has been in place since 2010.

Alabama's main website on driver license issues does not appear to provide information on changing the gender marker, though it does show information on changing one's address or name.

In its own equal employment opportunity information, ALEA says it is "committed to complying with all State and Federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination or harassment based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, pregnancy, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, citizenship, age, or physical or mental disability."