In addition to the driver’s license provisions, the law bans transgender people from using bathrooms matching their gender identity in public buildings and creates a bathroom bounty hunter system allowing citizens to sue transgender people they encounter in restrooms for at least $1,000 in damages, including potentially in private restrooms. The bill takes effect immediately upon publication in the Kansas Register rather than the standard July 1 effective date—giving transgender Kansans just days between the override and the invalidation of their identity documents.
The consequences for noncompliance could escalate quickly. Under Kansas law, driving without a valid license is a class B misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine—though first-time offenders are more likely to face a citation and fine. A conviction, however, triggers an automatic 90-day license suspension. If a person drives during that suspension, they face a charge of driving on a suspended license, which carries a mandatory minimum of five days in jail. Kansas already requires county jails to house inmates by sex assigned at birth.
Should we report magas for being in the wrong bathroom? Gum up their little bounty system?
Helpful to understand how these systems of power work. More often than not, the people making these reports will be members of the local republican party, a local church, or a similar conservatively aligned trust organization. They’ll organize these stings in partisan club meetings and partner with law firms and file in courts with friendly professionals.
You can certainly clog up the primary intake line. But shy of knowing the right Signal chat to join or just surrounding Ken Paxton’s DAs with mega-phones blasting “I saw your mom in the men’s restroom”, you’re not going to interrupt the back channels.
The bounty system goes through the civil courts, so there’s no efficient way to gum it up with reports. Anything frivolous would get thrown out immediately.
Absolutely
Better to save the time, money, and energy for getting folks out of Kansas and providing support for the ones still stuck there.
The bounty system goes through the civil courts and they can throw out frivolous suits as they please, so trying to gum it up with frivolous suits would be a lot more expensive than the benefits such a tactic would confer.