Transgender Kansans appeal court order blocking changes to driver’s license gender markers

TOPEKA — Transgender Kansans are challenging a district court’s ban on changing driver’s license gender markers as the courts try to determine the full scope of a divisive and vague law governing the state’s transgender residents.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, which represents the five transgender Kansans in the case, announced the appeal Thursday. D.C. Hiegert, LGBTQ+ legal fellow for the ACLU of Kansas, said the court’s ruling was based on an “overbroad interpretation” of the law.

“The court has decided that the state’s administrative interest outweighs the threat of harassment, discrimination and violence to individual Kansans,” Hiegert said. “This is clearly dangerous, and it wholly contradicts the tragic reality of current trends.”

Shawnee County District Judge Teresa Watson on Monday issued a block on gender marker changes for driver’s licenses, siding with Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach’s interpretation of Senate Bill 180. Under the law, genders are defined by reproductive organs, and state agencies that collect vital statistics are directed to identify individuals “as either male or female at birth.” Kobach argued this provision proves the need for driver’s licenses to show sex assigned at birth.

Kobach called the decision a “victory for the rule of law and common sense.” He filed the lawsuit against the Kansas Department of Revenue’s Division of Vehicles in July.

After he filed, the district court issued a temporary restraining order blocking Gov. Laura Kelly’s administration from making gender marker changes on identity cards and driver’s licenses. The court granted the ACLU of Kansas permission to intervene in the lawsuit on behalf of five transgender Kansans who would be harmed by the gender marker ban, and arguments were held in January.

“The Kansas Constitution’s Bill of Rights guarantees all Kansans, including those who are transgender, rights of personal autonomy, privacy and equality,” Hiegert said. “The court has mistakenly adopted the attorney general’s overbroad interpretation of SB 180, which provides no language whatsoever requiring the state to force Kansans to carry inaccurate identification cards, against their fundamental rights.”