A judge in Kansas on Monday ruled that the government’s refusal to change the sex on driver’s licenses does not violate trans people’s constitutional rights.
District Judge Teresa Watson sided with Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach in a 30-page decision, upholding his request that the Kansas Department of Revenue (KDOR) issue licenses that adhere to a person’s biological sex at birth.
Driver’s licenses are issued for a period of six years and are challenging to get up or out of circulation once issued, according to the Attorney General. “The threat of harm to the State of Kansas pending a final decision on the merits is this. Law enforcement uses licenses to track down legal suspects, violence victims, wanted people, missing people, and others,” according to Watson. “Public safety is a priority when people comply with the stated legal requirements for identifying registration holders. A final choice on the merits of allowing KDOR to issue non-compliant driver’s licenses is an instant and irreversible damage.”
Senate Bill 180, or the “Women’s Bill of Rights,” was passed by Kansas’ Republican-controlled legislature in 2023 with considerable support, eventually overriding Democratic Governor Laura Kelly’s filibuster. It was passed into law in July of last year, and natural sex is defined as either male or female at birth.
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Attorney General of Kansas, Kris Kobach. (Emily Curiel/Kansas City Star/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)According to the definitions of “male” and “woman,” which refers to individual females, and “man” and “boy” refer to individual males, and “female” refers to an individual whose natural reproductive system is developed to produce ova, and “male” refers to an individual whose natural reproductive system is developed to fertilize a female. Additionally, it states that the terms “mother” and “paternal” refer to the female sex parent, and that the name “paternal” refers to the male sex parent.
The regulations also clarify that there are legal protections for those who have a medically factual diagnosis of “disorder/difference of sexual development.”
Kobach, a conservative Republican, requested that the Kansas Department of Revenue’s officials follow the law when issuing driver’s licenses and other documents with sexual designations and in maintaining the related data in the KDOR database. The law does not discuss driver’s licenses.
Senate Bill 180 requires KDOR to “list the licensee’s biological gender, either male or female, at birth” and “update its database to represent the licensee’s sex at birth and incorporate that sex on any licenses it issues in the future,” according to Kobach’s official opinion, which came days before it became effective.
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The government then instructed the KDOR to follow the state attorney general’s directive and to continue with the current “gender identification policy.”
The District Court of Shawnee County granted Kobach’s request for a temporary restraining order, which mandates that KDOR soon cease and desist from processing requests from people asking to have their listings of sex on their driver’s licenses and that only new licenses be issued in accordance with Senate Bill 180’s definition of “biological sex.”
After allowing five transgender people to join the petition, Watson granted Kobach’s request for a temporary order on Monday.
The judge cited the intervenors’ claims that Section 1 of the Kansas Constitution’s Bill of Rights, which states that “all men are possessed of equal and inalienable natural rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” is violated by those intervenors.
They argued that the three rights that are protected by the law are personal autonomy, bodily integrity, and equal protection of the law.
On November 8, 2022, a watch party for the Republican nominee for Kansas attorney general, in Topeka, Kansas, takes place. (Tammy Ljungblad/The Kansas City Star/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)According to Watson, “sex is a critical statistic” collected from all license holders is unconstitutional and that there is no violation of those three rights.
According to Watson, “information recorded on a driver’s license does not impair transgender people’s ability to control their own bodies or demonstrate bodily integrity or self-determination.”
The 30-page choice also made note of how the Kansas Supreme Court’s 2019 ruling that the state constitution only grants LGBTQ+ right applies to pregnancy.
Kobach, who defended the decision, said in a statement that it was a win for the rule of law and common sense. “The court ruled that the law’s definition of ‘biological sex at birth’ should be respected after
the Legislature correctly stated that state agencies should do so.”
In a statement released by Politico, D.C. Hiegert, a transgender legal fellow from the ACLU of Kansas, said, “We will continue to work toward a vision of our state that allows all of us to live in peace, free from government oppression and strictures on our core identities.”
