From today Kansas residents will no longer be permitted to carry a driver’s license listing any sex other than the one assigned at birth, and the state is set to invalidate roughly 1,700 licenses and birth certificates currently held by residents.
The law has been simmering in state politics for some time, but it gained momentum after Donald Trump returned to office and made clear that a renewed “war on woke” would be central to his agenda. Several Republican-led states had already imposed restrictions preventing gender identities that differ from sex assigned at birth from being reflected on official documents. However, this new Kansas law goes significantly further than previous mandates.
If the recent State of the Union address is any indication, political polarization has reached new heights. Kansas was no exception. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly initially vetoed the bill, but the GOP supermajority in the legislature overrode her veto. Republican lawmakers across the country are similarly seeking to roll back transgender rights in other states.
Florida, Texas, and Tennessee do not allow a transgender person’s gender identity to be reflected on certain government documents. Kansas now joins eight other states that bar individuals from changing the sex designation on their birth certificates. The GOP has been adamant in its push to regulate gender identity. While it may appear to be a widespread issue affecting large swaths of the population, the numbers tell a different story.
“A race to the bottom”
Kansas has a population approaching 3 million people. Of those, approximately 22,000 identify as transgender. Every life has value, and even if it were just one person affected, that individual would deserve the state’s full consideration. Yet the GOP has not offered a cohesive explanation as to why individuals who simply wish to be addressed in a way that makes them comfortable constitute a societal vice requiring restrictive government policy.
Democratic state Rep. Abi Boatman, a transgender Air Force veteran, expressed similar concerns. Boatman said, “It tells me that Kansas Republicans are interested in being on the vanguard of the culture war and in a race to the bottom.” KCTV reports that the bill received unanimous support from GOP lawmakers.
Meanwhile, the president has often used the phrase “they want transgender for everybody” to deflect criticism of his administration on other moral controversies, including the Jeffrey Epstein saga, which, notably, involves actual victims. At the state level, however, Republicans appear intent on translating that rhetoric into policy.
Kansas Senate Majority Leader Chase Blaisi credited Trump’s 2024 reelection with what he described as a “return to common sense” in the state. Blaisi said, “When I go home, people believe there are just two sexes, male and female.” He added, “It’s basic biology I learned in high school.”
Policies like this are likely to energize voters ahead of the midterm elections. Some will turn out to preserve the GOP supermajority, while others, particularly left-leaning voters who may have previously stayed home over a single issue, may reconsider the costs of sitting out the political process.
