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.
Just the DL?
How does someone’s gender affect their ability to operate a motor vehicle?
DLs are used for personal identification and include a gender marker.
So demanding the recall of all outstanding DLs allows the state to bureaucratize the process of prosecuting transgender people. If you’re outed as transgender, your “fake ID” is now cause for arrest and prosecution. If your ID doesn’t match your appearance, you can be arrested and prosecuted under any number of blue laws.
This effectively makes it illegal to present as a gender other than what is on your birth certificate.
Exactly. It has nothing to do with operating a motor vehicle. It’s just about persecuting an already marginalized population.
They are obviously hoping to run all trans people out of the state or back into the closet.
This is what they mean by “making America great again” … they just want to eliminate everything that challenges their extraordinarily fragile worldview.