KS judge orders Kelly administration to stop allowing gender changes on driver’s licenses
A Shawnee County District Court judge on Monday ordered the Kansas Department of Revenue to immediately stop processing any gender marker change requests for driver’s licenses and to take steps to ensure any future licenses issued, or renewed, reflect a resident’s sex assigned at birth.
Judge Teresa Watson said Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s administration’s decision to continue allowing gender marker changes despite a new law defining man and woman based upon sex assigned at birth could result in “immediate and irreparable injury.”
The order came in response to a lawsuit filed Friday by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, a Republican who argues that a new Kansas law forbids trans and nonbinary Kansans from updating state issued documents to reflect their gender identity.
“The Attorney General points out that driver’s licenses are issued for a period of six years and are difficult to take back or out of circulation once issued,” Watson wrote in a three-page temporary restraining order.
“Licenses are used by law enforcement to identify criminal suspects, crime victims, wanted persons, missing persons, and others. Compliance with stated legal requirements for identifying license holders is a public safety concern.”
Watson didn’t rule on whether the Kelly administration had broken state law by continuing to issue updated licenses and noted repeatedly that the order was based on assertions by Kobach. The order is effective for two weeks, allowing time for Watson to hold a full hearing.
The order is the latest development in a legal fight between Kobach and Kelly over the extent of SB 180, titled the “Women’s Bill of Rights,” which the Republican-controlled Legislature passed this spring over Kelly’s veto.
The sweeping measure defines man and woman in state law based upon sex assigned at birth. The law is one of the first of its kind in the nation, amid a sweep of legislation affecting the lives of transgender residents.
At stake are the identity documents of hundreds of trans residents who have changed the gender markers on their driver’s licenses in recent years. Kobach contends the law not only requires the Kansas Department of Revenue to stop changing licenses but also to revert licenses to their original markers.
Kelly’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment. In a court filing, Ted Smith, an attorney for the Kansas Department of Revenue, asked Watson to remove the temporary restraining order, saying many Kansas residents depend on their licenses to indicate their gender to employers and that trans residents could be put in a position of explaining the difference between what their license says and how they present to society.
“There will be serious harm and public impact to individuals if they must reclassify their gender as requested” by Kobach, Smith wrote.
Adam Kellogg, a 20-year-old transgender man and University of Kansas student, said the order was harmful to Kansas’ gender non-conforming residents who may have mismatched documentation.
The argument in the order that police need to know a person’s sex assigned at birth, Kellog said, is illogical.
“It’s more likely that the police need to know what you look like than what your genitalia is,” Kellog said. “If I got pulled over driving and my ID said female, how confusing would that be?”
While Kansans are, for now, blocked from changing their gender marker on a driver’s license, they are still able to to change their gender marker on birth certificates. Kobach’s lawsuit only concerned driver’s licenses. The ability to change birth certificates was guaranteed in a consent order the Kelly administration struck in 2019 to resolve a federal lawsuit filed by transgender residents.
Kobach filed a motion last month asking a federal judge to reopen the case and set aside the consent agreement in light of SB 180. In a legal opinion issued days before the law took effect on July 1, Kobach said that state issued legal documents must reflect a person’s sex assigned at birth.
Lawmakers said the new law was important for ensuring female-designated spaces, like restrooms, are segregated by sex assigned at birth. But Kobach and Kelly both said last month that the law would not affect policies for such spaces because it lacks an enforcement mechanism.
Brittany Jones, a lobbyist for Kansas Family Voice, a conservative Christian policy group that advocated for the law, said she believed Kobach’s interpretation of the law was consistent with how it was written.
“How this was applied was always going to be determined by courts anyways,” Jones said. “I do think this is the appropriate application of SB180. It was always intended to protect women’s opportunities and their place in society as well as how they’re reported in bio statistics.”
This story was originally published July 10, 2023 at 10:36 AM with the headline "KS judge orders Kelly administration to stop allowing gender changes on driver’s licenses."
