Kansas anti-trans law targets IDs and birth certificates — and the right to vote

Kansans rally in support of transgender rights May 5, 2023, at the Statehouse in Topeka. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

Last week, Kansas enacted another in a growing string of anti-transgender laws — and this latest legislation threatens transgender people’s right to vote.

The new law, House Substitute for Senate Bill 244, is another example of increasingly extreme government overreach and efforts to restrict transgender people’s rights nationwide. In addition to a sweeping and dangerous bathroom ban, SB 244 requires any Kansas birth certificate or driver’s license that reflects a transgender person’s gender identity to be invalidated and revoked — a first in the nation.

The law further requires transgender Kansans to surrender their now-invalid driver’s license to the state before they can receive a replacement — one that will only reflect their sex at birth, regardless of how these Kansans may look or live their life today, and regardless of the risks to their own safety.

This law was enacted despite the Legislature’s anti-democratic tactics to avoid public hearings; despite the fact that courts have ruled previous Kansas restrictions on updating gender markers on IDs to be unconstitutional; and despite the fact that when transgender people are forced to use IDs that do not reflect their gender identity, they are more likely to face harassment, discrimination, and even violence.

While this new, wide-sweeping law has many dangerous potential consequences, a particularly troubling one is its threat to transgender Kansans’ ability to exercise their constitutional right to vote.

This is because Kansas has one of the strictest voter ID laws in the country. Kansas requires that voters present a state-issued, unexpired, photo ID to cast a ballot. If a voter is unable to provide an ID that meets these requirements, they must cast a provisional ballot, which will only be counted if the voter submits an accepted ID to their county elections office by the Monday following the election.

These two policies together mean that many transgender Kansans may have their IDs invalidated this year yet still be required to produce a valid ID to be allowed to vote. This combination means that at least some of an estimated 22,000 adult transgender Kansans will face serious obstacles to voting this fall and beyond.

As Gov. Laura Kelly noted in her veto of the bill, it is “poorly drafted,” creating many unanswered questions that further illustrate the threat to transgender Kansans’ ability to vote. There is no information, process or timeline offered for how the state will revoke these IDs, or when affected Kansans will be notified that their IDs are now invalid and unusable. There is no information about whether affected Kansans will be forced to pay for new IDs.

There are no measures offered to ensure that transgender Kansans will not be turned away by confused poll workers who see an ID with a gender marker that does not reflect the person standing before them. There are certainly no measures offered to minimize the risk that transgender Kansans will avoid voting entirely, out of reasonable fear that showing mismatched IDs at the polls may expose them to mistreatment.

This policy is not only discriminatory: It’s voter suppression.

IDs unlock essential freedoms we all rely on — like the freedom to travel, work, drive and more. Revoking a transgender person’s ID after it has been issued via a rigorous, state supervised process — and then banning future updates — strips those freedoms away.

Every Kansan, including transgender Kansans, deserves to vote free from mistreatment and unnecessary obstacles. We should be encouraging more civic participation, not making it harder for Americans to vote. SB 244, however, does just that: it not only  threatens transgender Kansans’ basic safety and freedom, but also their very right to participate in the democratic process.

As the director of policy research at the Movement Advancement Project, Logan S. Casey (he/him) offers expertise in laws and policies that impact the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ people. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.