A Kansas judge says barring driver’s license changes doesn’t violate trans people’s rights

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas judge ruled Monday that the state isn’t violating transgender residents’ rights under the state constitution by refusing to change their driver’s licenses to reflect their gender identities.

District Judge Teresa Watson kept in place indefinitely an order she first issued in July 2023 to prevent the Kansas Department of Revenue from changing the listing for “sex” on transgender people’s driver’s licenses. Attorney General Kris Kobach, a conservative Republican, sued Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s administration to stop such changes in line with a 2023 law that ended legal recognition of transgender people’s identities.

Watson allowed transgender Kansas residents to intervene in Kobach’s lawsuit, and the American Civil Liberties Union argued on their behalf that the no-changes policy violated rights protected by the Kansas Constitution. The Kansas Supreme Court declared in 2019 that the state constitution grants a right to bodily autonomy, though the decision dealt with abortion rights, not LGBTQ+ rights.

Watson said invoking the right to bodily autonomy to require the state to change driver’s licenses would be “an unreasonable stretch.” She said Kansas residents do not have a fundamental right under the state constitution to “control what information is displayed on a state-issued driver’s license.”

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