Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen told Newsmax on Thursday that the state's new law defining the word "sex" to mean only male or female serves a very practical purpose in the state's criminal justice system.
"As the attorney general and the guy in charge of the State Department of Justice, I'm in charge of all the criminal justice data, and we have a tremendous amount of criminal justice data," Knudsen said during an appearance on Newsmax's "National Report."
"We also are in charge of the motor vehicle division and driver's licensing. Just from a criminal justice data standpoint, we have to be able to have solid data on whether you're a male or a female for criminal records when someone's pulled over. If there is an arrest, we have to be able to pull that criminal record."
"If you're someone who has decided halfway through your life to ‘change your gender,' that creates all kinds of havoc for criminal justice data that has to be able to follow that individual," he continued.
"And if you're changing or if that's changed, that becomes very problematic for our criminal justice data. So, that's a boring answer, but that's a really truly logistical problem for us here at the Department of Justice, and that's why we're actually very supportive of this legislation."
Knudsen said that Montana has had "several instances" where "non-binary individuals" have sued "demanding that their driver's license say that they are non-binary."
"Well, I'm sorry, but under our state law, that's just not even an option," he said. "I mean, we literally are a one or the other state and that's just where this came down."
Commenting on the state's prohibition on people dressed in drag reading books to children at public schools and libraries, Knudsen said that, while Montana may be a "very libertarian state," state residents take their children "very seriously."
"We've got a very libertarian streak, and I don't think anybody in Montana cares if you want to be a 6'5' dude and dress up in drag and go to a private venue," he said. "Nobody cares. Knock yourself out."
"The problem we've got is when you want to use taxpayer dollars, you want to go to a public venue and a public school or public library and perform in front of children," he continued.
"That raises a lot of questions. That raises questions, certainly to me as a parent, but I think that there's just a fundamental question here. Should we be using public funds and public facilities for you to perform in front of children? And that's what this is all about."
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