Kansas sued over new transgender ID and bathroom law

By Daniel Wiessner

Feb 27 (Reuters) - Two transgender men in Kansas filed a lawsuit on Friday seeking to strike down a new state law that invalidated the driver's licenses and birth certificates of more than 1,000 transgender people.

The American Civil Liberties Union is representing the plaintiffs, who claim in the lawsuit, filed in Kansas state court, that the law violates their rights to equality, due process and privacy under the state constitution.

The law makes Kansas the only U.S. state to invalidate previously approved changes to gender markers on identification documents, part of a broader push by Republican-led legislatures to restrict the rights of transgender people.

The sweeping law, which took effect on Thursday, requires state residents to change their gender identification on driver's licenses and birth certificates to the sex they were assigned at birth, and bans them from changing their gender on those documents in the future.

The law also prohibits transgender people from using multi-occupancy bathrooms in government buildings that do not correspond to their sex assigned at birth, and authorizes private citizens to sue people who violate the law.

The plaintiffs, who filed the lawsuit under pseudonyms, said the law will require them to disclose their transgender status each time they present identification and expose them to harassment and violence when they use public bathrooms. They said they would seek an order temporarily blocking the law while the case proceeds.

Kansas officials on Thursday said identification documents had been invalidated for more than 1,000 state residents. Affected residents must pay for new driver’s licenses.

The office of Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, a Republican, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The defendants in the lawsuit are Kobach's office and state agencies that issue identification documents and maintain government buildings.

At least eight other states, including Texas, Florida and Indiana, have prohibited such changes moving forward, and several of those laws are being challenged in court.

Transgender people in the United States have faced increasing restrictions at the state and national levels. Republican President Donald Trump has issued a series of executive actions targeting transgender rights since returning to office last year.

One Trump directive stated that the U.S. government will recognize only two sexes: male and female. Others sought to exclude transgender athletes from female sports and require applicants for U.S. passports to list the sex they were assigned at birth.

Kobach's office in 2023 filed a lawsuit claiming that changing the gender markers on driver’s licenses, which had been permitted up to that point, was already unlawful under state law. A state court rejected those arguments last year.

State lawmakers then introduced the bill later enacted into law after the Kansas legislature overrode Democratic Governor Laura Kelly’s veto.