By Helen Coster
NEW YORK, Feb 26 (Reuters) – The Kansas state government has invalidated the driver’s licenses and birth certificates of transgender residents who changed the gender on those documents, in accordance with a law that took effect on Thursday.
The move affects more than 1,000 people. The law requires residents to change their gender identification to the sex they were assigned at birth, and also bans residents from changing their gender on those documents in the future.
Affected residents must pay for their new driver’s licenses.
The law also requires transgender people to use bathrooms and locker rooms in buildings owned or leased by government entities that match their sex assigned at birth.
INCREASING RESTRICTIONS ON TRANSGENDER AMERICANS
Transgender people in the United States have faced increasing restrictions at the state and national levels. Republican President Donald Trump has taken a particularly hard line since returning to office last year, issuing multiple executive orders limiting transgender rights.
One Trump directive stated that the U.S. government will recognize only two sexes, male and female. Another sought to exclude transgender athletes from female sports.
The new Kansas law “puts transgender people in danger any time they interact with law enforcement or apply for a job or for housing or public benefits,” said Harper Seldin, a senior staff attorney with the LGBTQ and HIV Project at the American Civil Liberties Union.
“The mismatch between how they present themselves in the world and their driver’s license puts them at risk of discrimination or violence, and so that’s why many trans people choose to change the sex markers on our licenses so that we can live as ourselves in society and keep ourselves safe.”
Kansas residents were permitted to change their gender markers on driver’s licenses and birth certificates until 2023, when those changes were halted amid litigation initiated by the state’s Republican attorney general, Kris Kobach. Last year, the courts permitted transgender residents to once again make those changes. State lawmakers then introduced the bill enacted into law after the Kansas legislature overrode Democratic Governor Laura Kelly’s veto.
Seldin said the ACLU expects to file a lawsuit challenging the law by the end of Friday.
(Reporting by Helen Coster; editing by Donna Bryson, Rod Nickel)
