I had a vigorous conversation with my sister who lives on the border of Texas and Arkansas about how these kinds of laws make cisgender women less safe and equate to making sure that women are performing femininity to the point where “bounty hunters” don’t come after them in the bathroom. She didn’t believe me until one of her less than feminine friends was confronted in a bar in Ft Worth. My sister was just “outraged.” Yeah, should’ve listened to what those people who are just trying to “protect the women and girls” were ACTUALLY saying…no peace for any women unless ALL women fight back. Trans rights matter for everyone.
I have never been more angry or embarrassed to have been born a Kansan. It is a shame that when my children's grandparents die, it will be unsafe for them to come to say goodbye to their loved ones.
😞That is true and sad and horrid. After you’ve taken the time to process how awful that is, I hope you’ll be able to have a chat with those grandkids (AND your parents) how they could participate remotely if it comes to that for safety reasons. Speaking as an elder caretaker with adult kids: simple tech (Zoom, Jitsi, Facetime) can be respectful tools that contribute to maintaining connections. Every staffer in the continuum of ElderCare does this stuff now so you’ll get pro help if you just ask. Talk it out, brainstorm, plan, the jerks only win if we give it to them.
The recently passed anti-transgender laws in Kansas represent one of the most punitive and harmful legislative assaults on the rights, safety, and dignity of transgender Kansans in generations.
These bills go far beyond ordinary policy debates — they actively empower private citizens to target transgender people, including provisions that would allow individuals to sue and seek monetary damages against transgender people simply for using restrooms consistent with their gender identity.
This effectively creates a bounty-style enforcement mechanism that encourages harassment and incentivizes strangers to police and profit from the existence of transgender people in public spaces, including bathrooms and other sex-segregated facilities.
At the same time, the Legislature is advancing measures that would strip away transgender people’s ability to obtain accurate identity documents — including driver’s licenses and birth certificates — by banning gender changes on those documents and requiring re-issuance of IDs reflecting only the sex assigned at birth.
This is an unprecedented intrusion into personal identity that would not only out transgender Kansans to employers, law enforcement, and strangers, but also jeopardize their ability to travel, work, access services, and keep themselves and their families safe.
These laws are inherently discriminatory and dangerous.
They normalize the targeting of a vulnerable minority, strip away basic protections of privacy and autonomy, and compound real, documented harms — including increased stigma, anxiety, and threats to physical safety — that transgender people already face in their daily lives.
I strongly believe that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Kansas, and allied civil rights organizations should take immediate legal action to challenge these provisions in court.
These measures raise serious constitutional concerns under equal protection, due process, and privacy guarantees.
Swift judicial review is essential to protect not only transgender Kansans, but also the basic principles of liberty and justice that all people in this country deserve.
Transgender Kansans — including youth, families, and elders — deserve to live with dignity, safety, and full recognition under the law.
Anything less is a violation of fundamental human rights and a troubling step backward in the fight for equality.
Like the citizens of MN I would hope that the citizens of Kansas will speak out loudly and clearly against this outrageous action and vote these vile legislators out of office in November
Great reporting, thank you! Hopefully the vote to override the expected veto will force this into the public's attention. Do Kansans really want to be known as cruel bigots?
This Kansas bill is absolutely draconian and beyond horrible. But exactly how are they planning to invalidate and revert DLs and BCs? Have they been compiling a list of people who have made these changes? If so, how do they know it was done for gender identity reasons and not to correct clerical errors? Also, have they already made lists of people who made these changes years or decades ago (i.e. what if a Kansan changed their documents in, say, 2008)? What if someone moved to KS from another state, having already changed their DL sex marker in the previous state, and their first KS document was the correct marker?
Also, once BCs are issued, typically they have no expiration date, and while they can be reverted in computer systems, they can’t be reverted on the paper copies that the individual has in their hand.
Anybody from KS are elsewhere know how these issues were considered, or will be?
I don't want to share too much in a public forum, but I know of instances of utter incompetence on the parts of state governments in handling birth records. It would not surprise me if databases were so screwed up that finding all the trans birth records is a prohibitively difficult process.
There's another possibility, though, and that's that they don't really intend to seek out our birth records and change our documents. Rather, they intend for us to keep our heads down and not make too much noise, because if we come above radar, we know that they will hose all our documents.
All good points, and also, I hope that the Kansas ACLU will sue over this. In particular, the DL and BC stuff seems like retroactive application of the law, since those initial sex marker changes were legal and proper at the time they were done. I’m assuming, though, that the ACLU can’t sue until after it becomes law, which it hasn’t yet.
Devastation. My whole body is in pain from sheer grief. Unless this gets someone successfully vetoed, I’ll risk arrest every time I drive. And Kansas, even Kansas City, isn’t known for its walkability.
And who knows what happens if I get arrested, with the notoriously corrupt local police.
I've never been challenged in a public restroom, but I can imagine myself saying something like, "Now, don't you put me in reasonable fear for my life." It would sort of be like brandishing a gun without even having one.
Kansans (I love my peeps back there!) are already planning a Capitol Pee-In, A Peaceful Demonstration, February 6, 1pm, 300 W. 10th St, Topeka, KS 66612. Meet @ 12:30pm in the lunchroom, to the left past security. On the screenshot I saw it says it has logos at the bottom for: Ace Foundation Affirmative Care Essentials, lgbtqks, and M-Care Healthcare for Everyone. It also says: "Join us as we protest government overreach into the most basic of human bodily functions. Please share and make your voices heard! Ride/carpooling available. Travel expense assistance available. Can't go, but you want to help? -Ask your reps to uphold Gov. Kelly's expected veto. -Donate for travel expenses, funds will be distributed to community members. Unfortunately I can't seem to share a screenshot here which has a QR code for donating thru PayPal.
there will be a hierarchy of targets for bountyhunterfreaks: very old+young, BIPOC and anyone solo will get challenged as presumed as
socially-less-defended and less prepared to fight back. I'm sure the ACLU has already filed a lawsuit but: Get Bathroom Friends +don't-go-alone might be one temporary strategy. Ridiculous to have to contemplate, my intersectional educator brain is in overdrive from these developments.
I have never been to Kansas nor have I any intentions of ever going. I have been within a mile of Kansas, at Jack Stack's, but that is as close as I ever need to get. I doubt that Kansas has the ability to get my out-of-state license revoked and I sure as hell would never have a Kansas license.
42 U.S.C. § 1983, 18 U.S.C. § 241, & 18 U.S.C. § 242 are all laws which make it a federal felony, with up to and including the death penalty. Contrary what one person here claimed, it is not constitutionally required for Congress to name an unenumerated right to be such for it to be protected. It is a matter solely of political will to do it.
I had a vigorous conversation with my sister who lives on the border of Texas and Arkansas about how these kinds of laws make cisgender women less safe and equate to making sure that women are performing femininity to the point where “bounty hunters” don’t come after them in the bathroom. She didn’t believe me until one of her less than feminine friends was confronted in a bar in Ft Worth. My sister was just “outraged.” Yeah, should’ve listened to what those people who are just trying to “protect the women and girls” were ACTUALLY saying…no peace for any women unless ALL women fight back. Trans rights matter for everyone.
I have never been more angry or embarrassed to have been born a Kansan. It is a shame that when my children's grandparents die, it will be unsafe for them to come to say goodbye to their loved ones.
😞That is true and sad and horrid. After you’ve taken the time to process how awful that is, I hope you’ll be able to have a chat with those grandkids (AND your parents) how they could participate remotely if it comes to that for safety reasons. Speaking as an elder caretaker with adult kids: simple tech (Zoom, Jitsi, Facetime) can be respectful tools that contribute to maintaining connections. Every staffer in the continuum of ElderCare does this stuff now so you’ll get pro help if you just ask. Talk it out, brainstorm, plan, the jerks only win if we give it to them.
🙏🏽💜
The recently passed anti-transgender laws in Kansas represent one of the most punitive and harmful legislative assaults on the rights, safety, and dignity of transgender Kansans in generations.
These bills go far beyond ordinary policy debates — they actively empower private citizens to target transgender people, including provisions that would allow individuals to sue and seek monetary damages against transgender people simply for using restrooms consistent with their gender identity.
This effectively creates a bounty-style enforcement mechanism that encourages harassment and incentivizes strangers to police and profit from the existence of transgender people in public spaces, including bathrooms and other sex-segregated facilities.
At the same time, the Legislature is advancing measures that would strip away transgender people’s ability to obtain accurate identity documents — including driver’s licenses and birth certificates — by banning gender changes on those documents and requiring re-issuance of IDs reflecting only the sex assigned at birth.
This is an unprecedented intrusion into personal identity that would not only out transgender Kansans to employers, law enforcement, and strangers, but also jeopardize their ability to travel, work, access services, and keep themselves and their families safe.
These laws are inherently discriminatory and dangerous.
They normalize the targeting of a vulnerable minority, strip away basic protections of privacy and autonomy, and compound real, documented harms — including increased stigma, anxiety, and threats to physical safety — that transgender people already face in their daily lives.
I strongly believe that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Kansas, and allied civil rights organizations should take immediate legal action to challenge these provisions in court.
These measures raise serious constitutional concerns under equal protection, due process, and privacy guarantees.
Swift judicial review is essential to protect not only transgender Kansans, but also the basic principles of liberty and justice that all people in this country deserve.
Transgender Kansans — including youth, families, and elders — deserve to live with dignity, safety, and full recognition under the law.
Anything less is a violation of fundamental human rights and a troubling step backward in the fight for equality.
Like the citizens of MN I would hope that the citizens of Kansas will speak out loudly and clearly against this outrageous action and vote these vile legislators out of office in November
Great reporting, thank you! Hopefully the vote to override the expected veto will force this into the public's attention. Do Kansans really want to be known as cruel bigots?
As someone who lives in Kansas, yes, yes they do.
"Bleeding Kansas" ring a bell?
This Kansas bill is absolutely draconian and beyond horrible. But exactly how are they planning to invalidate and revert DLs and BCs? Have they been compiling a list of people who have made these changes? If so, how do they know it was done for gender identity reasons and not to correct clerical errors? Also, have they already made lists of people who made these changes years or decades ago (i.e. what if a Kansan changed their documents in, say, 2008)? What if someone moved to KS from another state, having already changed their DL sex marker in the previous state, and their first KS document was the correct marker?
Also, once BCs are issued, typically they have no expiration date, and while they can be reverted in computer systems, they can’t be reverted on the paper copies that the individual has in their hand.
Anybody from KS are elsewhere know how these issues were considered, or will be?
Again, this is absolutely horrible.
I don't want to share too much in a public forum, but I know of instances of utter incompetence on the parts of state governments in handling birth records. It would not surprise me if databases were so screwed up that finding all the trans birth records is a prohibitively difficult process.
There's another possibility, though, and that's that they don't really intend to seek out our birth records and change our documents. Rather, they intend for us to keep our heads down and not make too much noise, because if we come above radar, we know that they will hose all our documents.
All good points, and also, I hope that the Kansas ACLU will sue over this. In particular, the DL and BC stuff seems like retroactive application of the law, since those initial sex marker changes were legal and proper at the time they were done. I’m assuming, though, that the ACLU can’t sue until after it becomes law, which it hasn’t yet.
Revoking state IDs if one gets "caught"?? That's wild 😵
They are revoking state id of anyone who changed it regardless of if they get caught.
How many more of the things we all said would happen have to happen before people start believing us?
Devastation. My whole body is in pain from sheer grief. Unless this gets someone successfully vetoed, I’ll risk arrest every time I drive. And Kansas, even Kansas City, isn’t known for its walkability.
And who knows what happens if I get arrested, with the notoriously corrupt local police.
I don't suppose there is any way to go after these " bounty hunters " who get it wrong?
I believe it's a stand your ground state...
I've never been challenged in a public restroom, but I can imagine myself saying something like, "Now, don't you put me in reasonable fear for my life." It would sort of be like brandishing a gun without even having one.
That would only work if they were smart enough to understand what you were saying, for me it would also be true
Kansans (I love my peeps back there!) are already planning a Capitol Pee-In, A Peaceful Demonstration, February 6, 1pm, 300 W. 10th St, Topeka, KS 66612. Meet @ 12:30pm in the lunchroom, to the left past security. On the screenshot I saw it says it has logos at the bottom for: Ace Foundation Affirmative Care Essentials, lgbtqks, and M-Care Healthcare for Everyone. It also says: "Join us as we protest government overreach into the most basic of human bodily functions. Please share and make your voices heard! Ride/carpooling available. Travel expense assistance available. Can't go, but you want to help? -Ask your reps to uphold Gov. Kelly's expected veto. -Donate for travel expenses, funds will be distributed to community members. Unfortunately I can't seem to share a screenshot here which has a QR code for donating thru PayPal.
Calling it now- Kansas is the next state that'll get Florida Stripes on the map, if this goes through.
Sad-but-true, strategize-opposition-to,
there will be a hierarchy of targets for bountyhunterfreaks: very old+young, BIPOC and anyone solo will get challenged as presumed as
socially-less-defended and less prepared to fight back. I'm sure the ACLU has already filed a lawsuit but: Get Bathroom Friends +don't-go-alone might be one temporary strategy. Ridiculous to have to contemplate, my intersectional educator brain is in overdrive from these developments.
I have never been to Kansas nor have I any intentions of ever going. I have been within a mile of Kansas, at Jack Stack's, but that is as close as I ever need to get. I doubt that Kansas has the ability to get my out-of-state license revoked and I sure as hell would never have a Kansas license.
Fuck.
42 U.S.C. § 1983, 18 U.S.C. § 241, & 18 U.S.C. § 242 are all laws which make it a federal felony, with up to and including the death penalty. Contrary what one person here claimed, it is not constitutionally required for Congress to name an unenumerated right to be such for it to be protected. It is a matter solely of political will to do it.
Really gross law.
What is preventing someone from attempting to collect the bounty on the legislators that voted for this?