The Costly Cruelty of the Kansas Anti-Trans Driver’s License Law

A state legislature mired in animus against transgender Kansans has succeeded in its inhumane goals, leaving those affected in a state of confusion and anxiety.

Victoria Kelly moved across the border from Missouri to Kansas about four years ago in search of more physician-assistant job opportunities and life in a bigger city. It was also around this time that she came out as trans. Back then, the ability to change the gender marker on a Kansas driver’s license was held up in court, so her first Kansas license had her legal female name with a marker for male. “Anytime I had to pull that out and use that, I had to answer a lot of questions and got a lot of strange looks,” she said. It made her more hesitant to travel by plane, knowing she’d have to use it at the airport. “It just caused a lot of unnecessary friction in my life,” she said.

Once she was legally able, she quickly got a new one with the right gender marker. It cost her $50, and she had to get a letter from her physician vouching for her, which felt strange. But it helped her be “one step closer to living life as my true self,” she said.

“I thought I was in the clear,” she added with a laugh. She ended up being wrong. This February, the Kansas legislature rushed through an emergency measure, Senate Bill 244, that not only blocked transgender people from changing their driver’s licenses to reflect their gender but also applied it retroactively, invalidating any state driver’s licenses and birth certificates with gender markers that differ from sex assigned at birth. It also mandates that people use the bathrooms in government buildings that align with their sex assigned at birth and allows people to sue if they feel someone in the bathroom with them is violating the law. Governor Laura Kelly vetoed the measure, only to have the legislature override it.

Kelly warned that it would “cost Kansas taxpayers millions of dollars to comply with this very vague legislation.” Her prediction has now come to pass: Transgender Kansas residents have had to shell out money for gas to drive to DMVs and secure new licenses, take days off of work to deal with it, and even contemplate the steep costs of moving out of a state in which they no longer feel safe.

After the law passed, Kelly assumed she would likely have at least until the summer to get her ducks in a row and change her license. New state laws typically take effect in early June. But then she got home from work on February 25 to find a letter from the state telling her that her license would be revoked as of February 26 if she didn’t change the gender marker. It also said that driving without a valid license would be potentially punishable by jail time. “I read it two or three times. I’m like, ‘Am I missing something?’” she said. She wasn’t: The law, passed February 18, offered no grace period, invalidating licenses as of February 26.  

She had to act immediately—she works at four different clinics around Kansas City, one of which is a 20-minute drive from her home. She knew she needed a valid license to get to and from work. She also knew that the potential cost of being arrested and serving jail time would have far-reaching consequences—it would likely get reported to the state medical board, putting her professional license and, therefore, her career, at risk. “The panic started to set in,” she said.

Her partner was able to drop her off and pick her up at work the next day, and then the following day, a Friday, she had off from work. But she knew she needed to be........

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