TOPEKA, Kan. — A newly-enacted Kansas law that invalidates certain driver’s licenses, restricts updates to gender markers and authorizes private lawsuits based on suspected transgender identity is now facing a constitutional challenge from two transgender residents.
SB 244, a recently passed Kansas state bill, according to an American Civil Liberties Union article prohibits transgender people from using public restrooms that do not align with their biological sex, invalidates driver’s licenses and authorizes anyone to sue anybody on mere suspicion of transgender identity.
Senate Bill 244 defines the term “gender” as the biological sex at birth for statutory interpretation. Under the bill, the Division of Vehicles is instructed to invalidate and reissue driver’s licenses whenever the gender identification needs to be corrected. Similarly, the Office of Vital Statistics is directed to invalidate and reissue birth certificates if the sex identification requires correction.
According to the ACLU, “SB 244, passed into law by the state legislature over Governor Laura Kelly’s veto,” … “allows anyone who suspects someone is transgender and in violation of the law to sue that person for ‘damages’ totaling $1,000.”
The ACLU reports that transgender individuals across Kansas received letters from the Department of Revenue’s Division of Vehicles informing them that their driver’s licenses will no longer be valid and that it prohibits those born in Kansas “from updating the gender marker on state-issued birth certificates and driver’s licenses in the future.”
The ACLU of Kansas began a lawsuit challenging SB 244 in the District Court of Douglas County on behalf of Matthew Moe and Daniel Doe, two transgender Kansas residents. The ACLU states that “SB 244 violates the Kansas Constitution’s protections for personal autonomy, privacy, equality under the law, due process, and freedom of speech.”
Monica Bennett, legal director of the ACLU of Kansas, states, “This legislation is a direct attack on the dignity and humanity of transgender Kansans.”
“The invalidation of state-issued IDs threatens to put transgender people at risk against their will every time they apply for a job, rent an apartment, or interact with police. Taken as a whole, SB 244 is a transparent attempt to deny transgender people autonomy over their own identities and push them out of public life altogether,” said Harper Seldin, senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project.
The ACLU emphasizes a statement by Ballard Spahr litigator Heather St. Clair: “SB 244 presents a state-sanctioned attack on transgender people aimed at silencing, dehumanizing, and alienating Kansans whose gender identity does not conform to the state legislature’s preferences.”
The article concludes with St. Clair’s emphasis on Ballard Spahr’s commitment to standing with the ACLU and the plaintiffs against the “injustice presented by SB 244.”
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