Global Courant
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A new Kansas law requires the state to reverse all previous gender changes in transgender birth and driver’s license registers while preventing such changes in the future, the state’s conservative Republican attorney general said Monday.
Attorney General Kris Kobach also said that public school student files must list them as the sex they were assigned at birth, whether or not teachers and staff recognize their gender identity.
Democratic Governor Laura Kelly’s office said she disagreed with Kobach’s views, though it did not say whether government agencies under the governor’s control would follow or defy them, precluding the possibility of a lawsuit . In 2019, a federal judge began requiring Kansas to allow transgender people to change their birth certificates to settle a lawsuit about an unchanging policy.
“The attorney general should be upset,” said Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, a lawyer for Lambda Legal who represented the four Kansas residents. “This was a bunch of bombast by an attorney general who deals with politics.”
A formal but non-binding legal opinion from Kobach and his statements at a Statehouse press conference confirmed that on Monday the new law, if it were in full effect, it would legally erase the gender identity of transgender people. Opponents predicted as much before the Republican-controlled legislature passed the law over Kelly’s veto, but the debate was mostly about keeping transgender people of using toilets and other facilities in accordance with their gender identity.
The new law defines a person’s sex — which can conflict with gender identity — based on a person’s “biological reproductive system” at birth. A woman has “developed a system to produce eggs” while a man has “developed a system to fertilize” that it says “important government objectives” to protect people’s health, safety and privacy warrant gender-separated spaces .
Story continues
“You can choose any name you want. You can choose to live however you want,” said Senator Renee Erickson of Wichita, one of three Republican lawmakers who joined Kobach at his press conference. “That doesn’t make you a woman.”
If Kansas didn’t allow transgender people to change their birth certificates — the policy before the 2019 judge’s order — it would be just one of a handful of states. Federal judges earlier this month upheld Oklahoma and Tennessee policy against such changes, and Montana could be sued in state courts due to a 2022 law.
Micah Kubic, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, said state agencies are under no obligation to adopt Kobach’s views and accused the attorney general of rushing to “impose his own stamp of extremism” .
The state has not provided figures on how many Kansas residents have changed the gender on their birth certificates or driver’s licenses in the past four years. Kobach estimated the number of birth certificates at more than 100. Kelly’s administration has not said how it will respond to the law.
Adam Kellogg, a 20-year-old transgender student at the University of Kansas, said Kobach’s views, if adopted by the state, would mean transgender people who need to verify their identities would see conflicts between their documents and gender identities. quickly.” He said transgender people could be forced to abandon themselves, putting their safety at risk.
“This is government imposition in a way that should be of more concern to more people,” Kellogg said.
Kobach emphasized that transgender people do not have to hand in any documents in their possession. Legally they just wouldn’t be correct.
He said he is not yet pushing for state action on birth certificates to allow a federal judge to grant them his request to cancel the 2019 order. He argued that state law prevails over what he described as a judge signing a legal settlement — an idea others dispute.
“The legislature has spoken,” Kobach said at his press conference. “The governor’s staff and the governor’s agencies cannot pretend that the legislature has not overridden its veto.”
In a brief statement Monday, Kelly spokesperson Zach Fletcher said the administration had discussions with Kobach’s office but saw the 2019 federal judge’s order as “the right thing to do.”
Fletcher added that the governor’s office would not comment further because of “the impending lawsuit.”
___
