AG Outlines Plan to Reverse Trans Kansans’ Legal Document Changes
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, a Republican, believes a law defining gender by birth-assigned sex requires state agencies to reverse legal changes to drivers’ licenses and other documents.
by Evan Urquhart
The legal picture for trans people in the U. S. is unclear, and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon. Multiple court cases are making their way through the legal system in the wake of an unprecedented wave of legislation targeting the trans community. The outcomes of any particular law are therefore impossible to predict in the near future, and a Republican attorney general shooting his mouth off doesn’t change that. However, the statements of Republican officials interpreting recent anti-trans laws are useful in understanding the world Republicans are working towards. Kris Kobach, the attorney general of Kansas, has made it clear that such a world would be unrelentingly hostile to all trans people, including adults who legally transitioned many years ago and have been living quietly under the radar.
Changing gender on official documents can be a source of pride and comfort for trans people, but for many trans folks having documents that fit with our appearance is essential to the ability to just live normally, without being outed as a trans person every time we buy beer at a convenience store. That’s why Kobach’s statements, which interpret a Kansas law that defines “women as having the ability to produce eggs for reproduction and men as those whose reproductive systems are developed to fertilize eggs” according to the Kansas Reflector, are so concerning. Although Kobach minimized the danger of his interpretation that the law requires the state reverse gender changes that were previously made legally, it would require the forced outing of every trans person in the state every time they present ID, opening them up to harassment and discrimination they otherwise would never have had to worry about.
screenshot from the Kansas Reflector
The Democratic governor of Kansas disagreed with this interpretation, and Kobach’s statements have no actual force because the situation for Kansans who wish to change their documents will be decided in ongoing legal battles, not in the AG’s press conferences. However, that doesn’t mean the statements are unimportant. The AG is describing a world where no trans person can be left in peace, where staying out of politics or avoiding discrimination by conforming your gender appearance isn’t good enough, where people’s private lives need to be upturned by the state in the service of re-defining gender to exclude trans people. It’s nothing like the current reality or even the status quo of 20 or 30 years ago, where trans people faced a lot of gatekeeping and didn’t have a lot of visibility but also didn’t have a target on their backs in daily life if they were able to access transition.
