Kansas judge says barring driver's license changes doesn't violate trans people's rights
Source: NBC News/AP
March 11, 2024, 7:01 PM EDT
TOPEKA, Kan. — A Kansas judge ruled Monday that the state isn’t violating transgender residents’ rights under the state constitution by refusing to change their driver’s licenses to reflect their gender identities. District Judge Teresa Watson kept in place indefinitely an order she first issued in July 2023 to prevent the Kansas Department of Revenue from changing the listing for “sex” on transgender people’s driver’s licenses.
Attorney General Kris Kobach, a conservative Republican, sued Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s administration to stop such changes in line with 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-changes 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, though the decision dealt with abortion rights, not LGBTQ rights.
Watson said invoking the right to bodily autonomy to require the state to change driver’s licenses would be “an unreasonable stretch.” She said Kansas residents do not have a fundamental right under the state constitution to “control what information is displayed on a state-issued driver’s license.” “Information recorded on a driver’s license does not interfere with transgender persons’ ability to control their own bodies or assert 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 she took office in 2019, her administration allowed transgender people to change their driver’s licenses and birth certificates to reflect their gender identities. The Republican-controlled Legislature overrode her veto to enact the 2023 law, and transgender people can no longer change either identity document, thanks to Kobach’s efforts.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kansas-judge-says-drivers-license-changes-doesnt-violate-trans-peoples-rcna142877
= new reply since forum marked as read
Good, then the governor should direct the license printing office to only print the last name...
No honorific, no Gender identity, no first name. so A. Smith or C. Jones.
End of problem.
