Global Courant
Four times as many Kansans changed their gender on birth certificates and driver’s licenses this year in anticipation of a new state law banning residents from identifying themselves other than the gender they were assigned at birth.
The legislation is part of a series of measures taken by US lawmakers to roll back transgender rights. It has provisions intended to restrict the use of restrooms, changing rooms and other facilities by transgender people and applies to the identity of a person listed on state documents.
The Kansas law goes into effect on Saturday, but it’s not yet clear how it will affect the daily lives of transgender people. The new legislation violates a 2019 federal court order directing the state to allow transgender people to change their birth certificates.
Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, which vetoed the bill but was overridden by the Republican-controlled legislature, has not said whether it will continue to allow state agencies to authorize changes. She has said she disagrees with the legal view of conservative Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach, who has stated that the law supersedes the judge’s order. Kobach has also asked a judge to formally withdraw the order.
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The attorney general even indicated that the spate of last-minute changes by transgender people has been for naught: He says the law requires the state to undo any changes made to official documents.
At a Statehouse press conference this week, Kobach said the governor has “a legal and even a constitutional obligation to comply with the law.”
This image from the Kansas Department of Revenue shows an example of a driver’s license issued by the state’s Division of Vehicles. The number of Kansas residents who changed their gender on their driver’s license quadrupled this year ahead of a new law. (Kansas Department of Revenue via AP)
When asked if he would sue Kelly if she doesn’t, he replied, “If I had to, then absolutely.”
With the legal climate uncertain, the nonprofit legal aid organization Kansas Legal Services and LGBTQ+ rights advocates have been holding seminars for transgender people on how to change their documents. Both birth certificates and driver’s licenses list “sex,” which the new state law defines as a person’s “biological reproductive system” at birth.
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“There was a lot of pressure … to try and help people change their gender marker before July 1,” said Taryn Jones, vice president and lobbyist for the LGBTQ+ rights group Equality Kansas.
According to health department figures released this week, an average of 58 Kansas residents per month have so far changed their birth certificates this year, compared to an average of 13 from July 2019 through 2022.
The state department of motor vehicles reported this week that 161 people have changed their gender identity on their driver’s licenses this year, an average of 27 per month. That’s compared to an average of 5 1/2 per month from July 2019 through 2022.
According to state data, nearly 80% of gender changes on driver’s licenses occurred in May and June, after lawmakers overrode Kelly’s veto.
Some birth certificates have been altered by health care providers who incorrectly recorded a baby’s gender at birth. Others were for babies born with intersex conditions, such as ambiguous genitals, who were not initially assigned a gender at birth but later let their parents choose one.
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Jenna Bellemere, a transgender student at the University of Kansas, said she changed her birth certificate and driver’s license last year, believing “this anti-trans thing” was growing.
“I didn’t want to spend my whole life walking around with a document that was really inaccurate and an ID with a name that no one mentions anymore,” she said.
