A temporary ban on changing the sex on individuals’ licenses has been blocked by a district court in Kansas, which is backed by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach.
Civil rights activists warn that the move may force the country’s transgender people to leave.
A temporary order was issued on Monday by Shawnee County District Judge Teresa Watson regarding changes to sex on driver’s licenses. The action comes in response to court hearings in January regarding the application of a broad anti-trans law that was passed last year.
Kobach praised the rule of law and common sense in this determination. The court ruled that the meaning of the law is clear and that the Legislature correctly stated that state companies should report biological sex at birth.
In July, he initially sued the Kansas Department of Revenue’s Division of Vehicles, claiming that transgender people could not have their gender signs on their vehicle’s certificates.
Kobach cited a clause in Senate Bill 180, which became effective in July, to support his claim that driver’s certificates must display sex at birth. According to the law, gender is defined by biological tissues, and state agencies that compile vital statistics are able to classify people as either male or female at birth.
The district court’s temporary restraining order was issued at the time, preventing Kelly’s administration from altering identification cards and driver’s licenses in gender markers. The judge granted the five trans Kansans who would be harmed by the gender marker ban the right to file an intervention in the complaint.
Kobach argued for the lawsuit against Kansas Department of Revenue and American Civil Liberties Union members during the two weeks of sessions in January. Intervenors gave accounts of their own stigmatization, including forced vacations when they had to show drivers their driver’s license.
In her ruling, Watson claimed that the trans intervenors failed to adequately explain the negative effects of misaligned gender symbols.
“No one gave specific examples of actual threats to their personal safety,” according to Watson, “but some just talked about hearing about harm that had occurred in unknown places and in unknown circumstances. The State of Kansas is in danger of being injured more than any injury the temporary order may inflict.”
The ACLU of Kansas’ D.C. Hiegert, a member of the LGBTQ+ legal community, stated that the ACLU was disappointed by the decision and would continue to look into various legal options.
“We will continue to work toward a vision of our condition that frees all of us from oppression and repression of our primary identities,” said Hiegert. “We are unsure whether the imagined harm to the state could possibly outweigh the significant harm our clients and other transgender Kansans are facing from being made to carry false identification documents, in violation of their constitutional rights.”
