(Developing: Will be updated)
A Shawnee County District Court judge has ordered Gov. Laura Kelly’s administration not to allow transgender Kansans to change their gender markers on driver’s licenses.
District Court Judge Teresa Watson issued a temporary restraining order Monday morning requiring the state to immediately stop processing any requests to change driver’s licenses to display a person’s sex in a manner that doesn’t reflect their biological sex at birth.
Watson, appointed to the court by former Gov. Sam Brownback, said allowing the state to continue issuing driver’s licenses that correspond with someone’s gender identity represented an “immediate” and “irreparable” injury.
“The attorney general points out that driver’s licenses are issued for a period of six years and are difficult to take back or out of circulation once issued,” Watson ruled.
“Licenses are used by law enforcement to identify criminal suspects, crime victims, wanted persons, missing persons, and others,” Watson wrote.
“Compliance with stated legal requirements for identifying license holders is a public safety concern.”
Watson issued the temporary injunction before the Kelly administration had a chance to file a response to the lawsuit and without a hearing.
The order was effective starting at 8:20 a.m. Monday. It remains in effect for 14 days or earlier if it’s modified or vacated by the court or unless it’s extended.
Last week, Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach filed a lawsuit asking a judge to enforce a new state law that he believes requires birth certificates and driver’s licenses to show someone’s sex assigned at birth.
The lawsuit, brought against Department of Revenue and the Division of vVhicles, only addresses driver’s licenses, not birth certificates.
He is trying to dissolve a separate consent order in federal court that requires the state to allow gender marker changes on birth certificates.
“The governor cannot pick and choose which laws she will enforce and which laws she will ignore. Yet that is what she has done with respect to SB 180, which established our state’s Women’s Bill of Rights,” Kobach argued in the brief.
“That law expressly requires that documents such as driver’s licenses reflect biological sex…and not a person’s chosen ‘gender identity,’” he contended.
“But the governor announced she will not comply with the Women’s Bill of Rights and has instructed her subordinate agencies, including the Department of Revenue’s Division of Vehicles, to disregard it.”
Kobach issued a legal opinion that said a new state law enacted this year required the state to reverse any driver’s licenses and birth certificates that were modified to reflect someone’s gender identity.
The law establishes that an individual’s sex means their biological sex – either male or female – at birth.
The new law – known as SB 180 – requires any state agency, school district or local government that collects vital statistics for public health, crime, economics or other topics to identify each individual as either a male or female at birth.
The new law also allows distinctions to be made between the sexes with respect to athletics, prisons or other detention facilities, domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, locker rooms and restrooms.
Kelly vetoed the bill but was eventually overridden by the Legislature, 84-40 in the House and 28-12 in the Senate.
The spokesperson for the governor said last week Kelly is following state law.
“While the attorney general has a well-documented record of wasteful and political lawsuits, Gov. Kelly is faithfully executing the laws of the state and has directed her administration to as well,” Brianna Johnson said in a statement.
“We look forward to the Kansas Department of Revenue being able to present its case in court,” Johnson said.
