(HorizonPost.com) – Last week, a judge in Kansas ordered the state to stop permitting transgenders from changing their gender on their driver’s licenses, NBC News reported.
The state’s Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach sued Governor Laura Kelly’s administration after the governor announced in June that the Kansas motor vehicles division would continue allowing transgenders to alter the licenses to match their gender identities even after a new law limiting gender to only biological males and females took effect.
For the past four years, the state allowed transgenders to change their gender on driver’s licenses, and during that time, nearly 400 Kansans had done so.
Kobach argued that the law that took effect on July 1 prevents such changes on driver’s licenses and requires the state to reverse any previous changes. The law includes a definition for “male” and “female” and bars the state from recognizing so-called gender identities like “transgender,” “nonbinary,” and “gender-fluid” in state laws or regulations.
Last Monday, District Judge Teresa Watson ordered the motor vehicles division to stop allowing gender changes on licenses for up to two weeks. However, the judge can extend the order.
In her order, Judge Watson noted that to continue allowing transgenders to change their driver’s licenses would cause “immediate and irreparable injury” since law enforcement uses licenses to identify missing persons, crime victims, suspects, and others. She wrote that complying with the state’s “legal requirements for identifying license holders is a public safety concern.”
According to Governor Kelly’s office, attorneys with the Kansas Department of Revenue, which oversees the motor vehicles division, do not believe that permitting transgenders to change the gender listed on their licenses violates the new law.
The new state law defines bases gender on the “biological reproductive system” at birth, meaning there are two genders: biological males and biological females. Under the law, all state regulations and laws must apply that definition.
Additionally, the law also outlines “important governmental objections” to protect the privacy, health, and safety of Kansans by limiting spaces like locker rooms and bathrooms to members of one gender.
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