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Transgender Kansans Sue After Driver’s Licenses Are Abruptly Canceled

By:Amy Harmon

Two transgender Kansans asked a state judge on Friday to strike down a new law that abruptly invalidated the driver’s licenses of residents who had changed their gender designations.

The law, which took effect Thursday, requires the gender marker on a driver’s license to match a person’s sex at birth. Indiana, Florida, Tennessee and Texas have similar policies. But Kansas was the first to explicitly bar gender-marker changes, and to invalidate those licenses.

The law also invalidates the birth certificates of residents who had changed the document to reflect their current gender identity, and allows private citizens to seek financial damages from transgender Kansans who use a bathroom that does not match their sex at birth.

In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs have requested a temporary restraining order and a temporary injunction to stop the state from enforcing the law while the case is being decided.

The measure “is a cruel and craven threat to public safety all in the name of fostering fear, division and paranoia,” Harper Seldin, a senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a news release.

The plaintiffs, who are suing under pseudonyms, have been living as men for many years and have driver’s licenses that say they are men, according to the declarations filed with the court. Many transgender Kansans received a letter this week from the Kansas Department of Revenue notifying them that the Legislature had not included a grace period for updating credentials.

“Your current credential will be invalid immediately,’’ the letter said. It then directed recipients to “surrender your current credential” and exchange it for one that reflects their birth sex. Driving without a valid license, it noted, could result in other penalties.

About 1,700 driver’s license holders in Kansas are affected by the new law, according to state officials. Transgender people age 13 and older account for about 1 percent of the U.S. population, according to the Williams Institute, a demographic research center at U.C.L.A.

Lawyers with the A.C.L.U. filed the lawsuit in Douglas County. The plaintiffs claim that the law violates several provisions of the state Constitution, including the right to due process and personal autonomy. They argue that because other Kansas drivers can choose how they are represented on their license — by changing their name, listing their status as a veteran or disclosing a disability — the law violates their guarantee of equal protection. They also contend that it infringes on freedom of expression by requiring them to adopt the state’s view of sex and gender.

“By forcing trans people, and only trans people, to have a license that says ‘F’ when they live their lives as men, or vice versa for trans women, it is requiring them to convey the state’s belief that transgender people don’t exist,’’ said Mr. Seldin, the A.C.L.U. attorney.

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Lawmakers cluster and read a paper. One wears a bow tie.
Representative Susan Humphries, left, sponsored the bill, which she said “has to do with truth.”Credit...John Hanna/Associated Press
The Kansas law is part of a wave of state-level legislation that rejects gender identity as a meaningful category, arguing that recognizing solely biological sex is important for protecting women and for accuracy. Transgender advocates argue that gender is central to identity, and that barring transgender people from access to bathrooms and government-issued documents is unlawful discrimination.

The Trump administration has prioritized stripping transgender Americans of legal recognition, including a requirement that U.S. passports reflect the sex on a person’s original birth certificate. And some Republican strategists believe that instituting more restrictions at the state level could help paint Democrats as out of step with voters in the midterm elections.

President Trump sought to make that point in his State of the Union address, calling Democratic members of Congress “crazy’’ when they did not react to his call to ban school policies that allow students to socially transition without informing their parents.

Republican lawmakers in Kansas this month overrode a veto on the driver’s license measure by Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat. Representative Susan Humphries, the bill’s sponsor, said during debates over the bill that it was necessary for accuracy in government record-keeping, and that it “has to do with truth.’’

The law’s rapid implementation left many transgender Kansas residents feeling under siege this week.

Some rushed to obtain new licenses, judging the peril of navigating life without one to be greater than carrying one that effectively outs them as transgender — and that they say could draw harassment and allegations of misrepresentation.

Others say they are waiting to see whether the state tracks them down before surrendering a license that they say accurately identifies them.

Anthony Alvarez, 21, a senior at the University of Kansas who transitioned in high school and changed the marker on his passport to “M” at age 19, said several transgender friends were considering moving after graduation to a state that will recognize their identity. Allowing themselves to feel comfortable using bathrooms and expressing their trans identity, he said, had been a yearslong process that they thought was behind them.

“When you first come out and you’re scared, and it all feels weird — I haven’t had to think of that in forever,’’ said Mr. Alvarez. “Suddenly, I’m back in the head space again.’’

Amy Harmon covers how shifting conceptions of gender affect everyday life in the United States.