TOPEKA, Kan. — A Kansas judge ruled Monday that the state did not violate transgender residents’ rights under the state constitution by refusing to change their driver’s licenses to reflect their gender identity.
District Judge Teresa Watson indefinitely enforced an order she first issued in July 2023 to prevent the Kansas Department of Revenue from changing the entry for “sex” on transgender people’s driver’s licenses. Attorney General Kris Kobach, a conservative Republican, has sued Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s administration to block such changes, following a 2023 law that ended legal recognition of transgender people’s identities.
Watson allowed transgender Kansas residents to intervene in Kobach’s lawsuit, and the American Civil Liberties Union argued on their behalf that the no-policy policy violated rights protected by the Kansas Constitution. The Kansas Supreme Court declared in 2019 that the state constitution grants a right to bodily autonomy, although the decision concerned abortion rights and not LGBTQ+ rights.
Watson said invoking the right to bodily autonomy to require the state to change driver’s licenses would be “an unreasonable effort.” She said Kansas residents do not have a fundamental right under the state constitution to “control what information appears on a state-issued driver’s license.”
“Information recorded on a driver’s license does not interfere with the ability of transgender individuals to control their own bodies or assert their bodily integrity or self-determination,” Watson wrote in her 31-page order, issued in Shawnee County, home to the state capital of Topeka.
Kelly supports LGBTQ+ rights. After coming to power in 2019, her government allowed transgender people to change their driver’s licenses and birth certificates to reflect their gender identity.
The Republican-controlled Legislature overrode its veto to enact the 2023 law, and thanks to Kobach’s efforts, transgender people can no longer change either identity document.
It’s not clear whether Kelly’s administration or transgender Kansas residents will appeal Watson’s ruling. DC Hiegert, a transgender attorney with the ACLU of Kansas, LGBGQ+, predicted that Watson’s ruling will lead to transgender people being harassed and denied services.
“What possible reason can we come up with to deny our transgender population peace of mind?” added Pedro Irigonegaray, a Topeka attorney representing the Kelly administration. “Why this vindictive attitude towards this class of individuals?”
The Kansas law was part of a wave of actions by Republican Party-controlled legislatures across the US to roll back transgender rights. Montana, North Dakota and Tennessee also passed laws defining male and female, and Republican governors issued executive orders in Nebraska and Oklahoma, where non-binary teen Nex Benedict was bullied and died after a fight in a school’s girls’ bathroom. Similar measures have been proposed in at least thirteen other states.
Kansas law does not mention driver’s licenses or birth certificates, but says that for purposes of any state law or regulation, a person’s sex is “male or female” based on the “biological reproductive system” identified at birth. Watson ruled that the language of the law is clear and “there are no exceptions.”
Kobach said in a statement: “This decision is a victory for the rule of law and common sense.”
Watson’s statement came the day before the Kansas House planned to debate a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors, something at least 23 other states have done. A final vote in the House was expected Wednesday.
“We will continue to work toward a vision for our state that allows us all to live in peace, free from government persecution and the imposition of our core identities,” Hiegert said in a statement.