SB 244 requires legal documents, such as birth certificates and driver’s licenses, to be based on sex assigned at birth and automatically invalidates all previously issued documents.
Not really. SB 244 only applies to Kansas residents. However, other anti-transgender laws, including bathroom restrictions, may still be applied regardless of state residency or citizenship.
Technically, SB 244 DOES affect anyone BORN in Kansas since you must comply with state law to update your birth certificate. Since Kansas does not allow transgender people to update this document, this means you are unable to amend your birth certificate if you were originally born in Kansas, although you may be able to update your driver’s license in your state of residence.
Until individuals obtain “corrected” documents, they face criminal and civil penalties equal to those for driving without a license. People have been quick to point out how unfair this is, since there was no grace period typical of document laws.
Will affected Kansas residents automatically get a corrected ID?
No. Obtaining a “valid” birth certificate or driver’s license affected by SB 244 is not free; individuals must pay state fees. Some affected residents will receive an official notice in the mail stating that their documents have been invalidated, but not everyone will get one.
In 2023, Kansas passed SB 180 to create a legal definition of biological sex – Attorney General Kris Kobach attempted to immediately require all updated legal documents to be based on “original sex at birth.”
Governor Kelly stated that the Kansas Department of Revenue would continue to process gender marker changes despite Kobach, prompting Kobach to sue. Kobach eventually lost this legal battle after the Kansas Supreme Court rejected his appeal, agreeing with the Kansas Court of Appeals that he failed to provide any evidence that the updated gender markers substantiated a “public safety concern.”
In the end, despite Kobach’s efforts, transgender Kansans could update their gender marker until SB 244 last month.
The law also now penalizes transgender people with a misdemeanor for using sex-segregated facilities not aligned with their biological sex. This includes restrooms, changing rooms, locker rooms, and shower rooms in all spaces meant for more than one person.
Like mismatched documents, this policy forcibly outs transgender people of all ages and puts them in unsafe situations in sex-segregated spaces that make everyone uncomfortable.
When bathroom bills first started to come around in 2016, I pointed out to people the reality of how ineffective they were. Sexual assault is illegal no matter what. Transgender people are NOT a high-risk population for committing sex-based crimes, but bathroom bills do nothing other than make people anxious about who is in the stall next to them.
Instead of meeting the needs of their constituents, Kansas lawmakers have prioritized cruelty… Forcing people into the wrong bathrooms, stripping them of accurate IDs, and allowing government-sanctioned harassment doesn’t make anyone safer — it targets transgender Kansans for no reason and will undoubtedly impact many others who are targeted with animus whether or not they are transgender.
SB 244 also created a “bounty hunter” provision to allow individuals to sue suspected transgender individuals up to $1,000 for using a facility not aligned with their sex assigned at birth.
Since its implementation, two transgender Kansans have already filed a lawsuit to block SB 244. Daniel Dow and Matthew Moe (pseudonyms for the case) have requested that the court declare SB 244 unconstitutional and block its enforcement.
In theory, Kansas courts previously sided with transgender rights leading up to SB 244 – but if Kansas takes the case to the United States Supreme Court, the Court will likely side with “states’ rights” similar to banning gender-affirming care and abortion. On the other hand, transgender men have purposely taken the lawsuit to force the Court to understand the consequences of forcing men into women’s restrooms despite their vilification of transgender women.