Photo by Topeka Capital-Journal
CV NEWS FEED // A Kansas district judge has ruled that the state can no longer issue driver’s licenses reflecting “gender identity” instead of birth sex.
In a court order issued yesterday, District Judge Teresa Watson said that continuing to allow trans-identifying Kansans to change the sex on their driver’s licenses is a public safety issue and could cause “immediate and irreparable injury” because
licenses are used by law enforcement to identify criminal suspects, crime victims, wanted persons, missing persons and others.
According to AP News, Kansas has been allowing people identifying as transgender to change their birth sex on driver’s licenses for the past four years and around 400 people have made the change.
Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly celebrated this practice in June, announcing that Kansas’ motor vehicles division should continue making changes to the sex listing to support identity.
The order halting the changes was made in response to a lawsuit filed by the state’s Republican Attorney General, Kris Kobach, against the governor. Kobach argued that a new Kansas law prohibits such changes from being made, as the state law defines “male” and “female” as aligning with an individual’s birth sex, not identity. The lawsuit reads:
That law expressly requires that documents such as driver’s licenses reflect biological sex, i.e., sex at birth, and not a person’s chosen ‘gender identity.’ But the Governor announced she will not comply with the Women’s Bill of Rights and has instructed her subordinate agencies, including the Department of Revenue’s Division of Vehicles, to disregard it.
Watson’s order will be in place for two weeks, and it can be extended by the court.
