Accurate state-issued IDs impact your health, too.

In recent weeks, the Kansas state legislature forced through a pernicious law (SB244) purporting to invalidate the drivers licenses of trans Kansans who have changed their gender marker. (Another rushed law, enacted at the same time, placed a bounty on trans people using the bathroom.) Soon after, the Kansas Division of Vehicles (KDOV) sent letters to trans people, notifying them that their licenses will be immediately invalidated. All licensure is now required to list one’s sex assigned at birth.

The Kansas legislature has created a solution in search of problem. This massive statewide effort has ensnared 1,700 license holders. KDOV is forcing impacted drives to pay the fees to have their license reissued. At ~$21 per license, the state of Kansas is expected to extort $35,700 from their own residents. KDOV is also compiling a list of all the updated documents, creating a de facto registry of drivers who had once changed their gender marker.

The American Civil Liberties Union has since filed a lawsuit to block the law, representing two trans Kansans. This suit is working its way through the state court system, and Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach has agreed to pause enforcement of the law until March 26.

The effects of an invalid or inaccurate state ID extend far beyond driving privileges. Having an inaccurate identification is often an invitation for harassment and discrimination. Identification is required to apply for a job, to board an airplane, and to access health care in some settings like emergency rooms. Kansas also requires state-issued voter ID to presented at polling locations in order to vote. These exclusionary experiences compound to negatively impact trans people’s mental health, according to a 2021 analysis by the Williams Institute at UCLA.

One trans Kansan who received a letter for KDOV, Alex, recently spoke to The Handbasket about their difficulties before changing their gender marker to match their presentation: “Before it was changed, I had problems buying alcohol, entering bars (important community spaces for queer people), awkward I-9 conversations for employment… Once a doctor’s office accused me of stealing my mother's driver’s license to check in because I didn't look female.”

Health care settings are already hostile to trans and gender non-conforming people, but an inaccurate ID will had even more confusion and uncertainty for trans people seeking basic care. Hospitals and doctors offices rely on multiple sources of information (especially state-issued IDs and insurance cards) for patient intake.

Kansas’ law will now introduce a discrepancy between these two forms of documentation. Health care experts who spoke to STAT News say these differences may cause trans Kansas to be denied insurance coverage and turned away from care altogether. As Kellan Baker, a senior advisor at the Movement Advancement Project, told STAT:

These life and death consequences don’t matter to Kobach or Kansas Republicans. Since taking office as state attorney general in 2023, Kobach has vehemently fought the rights of trans people. He began his attempt to invalidate trans people’s drivers licenses just a few months into his tenure, three years before the enactment of SB244. Last year, he also argued in federal court that trans people should not be protected by anti-discrimination law in health settings, challenging Biden-era policies on the definition of “sex” under the Affordable Care Act.

SB244 took effect immediately, and KDOV did not initially provide a grace period to give trans Kansans time to change their documents. The letter (above) is dated February 23 and indicates that licenses will be flagged as invalid just three days later. By the time the letter arrives at the recipient’s address, their license may already have been invalidated. They couldn’t even legally drive to the nearest DMV location to become compliant. They also can’t drive to work or to a hangout with friends.

At least one trans woman had her license invalidated despite never having updated her gender marker. She told Assigned Media that when she went to KDOV to resolve the situation, the employees were confused by the policy implementation: “It seemed like none of the DMV staff had any idea what was going on. I don’t think there was time for them to have any training on how to handle the SB244 stuff.” Her license appeared to be flagged because of her legal name change. KDOV had been surveilling court records and name changes since 2019 to identify trans residents in preparation for the passage of an SB244-like law.

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita has also compiled a list of trans license holders in his state and may be preparing to declare them “falsified” because they reflect gender identities. The insinuation that accurate licenses are invalid simply because the license holder is trans is just pure discrimination behind feigned concern for the truth.

The immediate invalidation of state-issued identification is not without precedent. In 1938, the Nazi regime invalidated the passports of Jewish-Germans, requiring passport holders to receive a red “J” stamp for the passport to be in compliance with Nazi policy. The red stamp signified the lower status of Jewish people in Nazi society, marking them for harassment.

Contemporary transphobia does not require the red stamp because trans people are marked by the conspicuous incongruence between our appearance and the sex/gender marker on a piece of plastic. Public health research has documented many instances of medical personnel refusing to honor trans patients’ preferred names and pronouns in the absence of supporting identification like drivers licenses.

In a case study of a trans man who was singled out by emergency room staff for intentional misgendering due to an inaccurate gender marker on his drivers license, he clearly articulated his experience: “I was a spectacle. I was a freak show at the circus. It was definitely to draw attention to the fact that my outward appearance didn't match [my identification].”

According to the 2022 United States Trans Survey, 48% of trans people older than 16 have had at least one negative experience with a health care provider. Emergency departments are sites of particularly intense harassment toward trans people seeking medical care. As a result, trans people may choose to avoid receiving emergency medical care instead of being subjected to vicious mistreatment.

Life and death consequences, indeed.