Kansas’ lawyer normal is shifting to dam trans individuals from altering their beginning certificates

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) – Transgender people born in Kansas could be barred from altering their birth certificates to reflect their gender identity if the conservative Republican prosecutor succeeds in a legal action he launched late Friday.

Attorney General Kris Kobach filed a motion in federal court asking a judge to reverse the requirement in Kansas to allow transgender people to alter their birth certificates.

U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree in 2019 imposed a requirement to settle a lawsuit filed by four transgender residents of Kansas against three officials at the state’s Department of Health and Human Services over a policy that critics said prevented transgender people from doing so even after the transition Make changes, legally change their name, and get a new driver Driver’s licenses and social security cards.

It wasn’t clear if Kobach’s efforts would succeed, as a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling declared that a federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in the workplace also prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. This year, federal judges in Idaho and Ohio overturned rules against transgender people changing their birth certificates, but on Thursday a federal judge in Tennessee dismissed a lawsuit challenging one of the country’s few remaining state measures against such changes.

Kobach’s move appears to be in line with a new, sweeping Kansas law that goes into effect July 1 and rolls back transgender rights. It was enacted by the Republican-controlled Legislature due to the veto of Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly. A memo filed electronically with Kobach’s application just before midnight cited the law as reason for a re-examination of the 2019 settlement.

The memo argued that Crabtree’s order made it “impossible” to follow the new state law and that the state health department, which administers birth certificates, was now “obligated to execute the law as written” since the legislature had “spoken.” .

Kobach had already scheduled a press conference at the Statehouse for Monday afternoon to discuss the enforcement of the new law.

Crabtree’s 2019 order blocked a policy imposed by former Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration that was among the harshest anti-birth certificate changes in the United States. Kelly is a strong supporter of LGBTQ+ rights and her government agreed to settle the lawsuit less than six months after taking office.

That decision came nearly a year after Crabtree said the Kansas policy violated the constitutional right of transgender people to due process and equal treatment before the law. His order notes that federal courts in Idaho and Puerto Rico had rejected the no-change policy. Kobach’s memo called those judgments outdated.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and the LGBTQ+ rights group Lambda Legal, which represents the four Kansas residents, condemned Kobach’s move. Lamda Legal’s Omar Gonzalez-Pagan called it “unnecessary and cruel”.

Kansas ACLU executive director Micah Kubic added in a statement, “Mr. Kobach should reconsider the wisdom — and the sheer lewdness — of this attempt to weaponize his office’s authority to attack transgender Kansas just trying to get on with their lives.”

Kansas’ new law aims to prevent transgender people from using restrooms, locker rooms and other same-sex facilities related to their identity. At least nine other states have such laws, mostly focused on public schools.

Kobach said he believes Kansas’ new law will also prevent transgender people from changing their driver’s license, although the law does not provide specific enforcement mechanisms. Legislators drafted the bill so they can prevent transgender people from changing their birth certificates, except for the 2019 federal court order, without specifically mentioning birth certificates or driver’s licenses.

For weeks, a project by Kansas Legal Services, a nonprofit law firm, encouraged transgender people from Kansas to change their driver’s licenses before the new law went into effect. Kelly’s administration, which is responsible for licensing drivers, hasn’t said whether it thinks such changes would still be allowed under the new law.

Ellen Bertels, the attorney who led the effort, said that while a transgender person could sue after the law went into effect to protect people’s right to change their driver’s licenses, a lawsuit by a state official against Kelly’s government could be aimed at prevent such changes.

“That’s sort of the obvious place they would end up,” Bertels said.

As for birth certificates, the number of states that don’t allow transgender people to alter birth certificates has decreased due to challenges in federal courts like the one in Kansas. In Oklahoma, Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt is being sued over his 2021 executive order banning such changes.

According to Alex Rate, one of their attorneys, the Montana ACLU plans to challenge a rule enacted there last year that prohibits people from changing the gender on their birth certificates. The state has tightened its rules since GOP Gov. Greg Gianforte took office in 2021.

Previously, since 2017, when Democrat Steve Bullock was governor, Montana allowed transgender people to alter their birth certificates by filling out an affidavit.

Advocates of LGBTQ+ rights say that changing birth certificates, driver’s licenses and other records to reflect a transgender person’s gender identity is key to confirming their identity and often vastly improves their mental health.

Policies against altering birth certificates and other documents also have practical implications for transgender residents. For example, Kansas requires voters to show photo identification when voting or obtaining an absentee ballot.

Critics of the new Kansas law say it aims to legally exclude transgender people.

It explains that state law recognizes only two sexes, male and female, and defines them based on a person’s “biological reproductive system” at birth. A woman is someone whose system is “designed to produce eggs,” while a man is just someone with a system “to fertilize a woman’s eggs.”

The law then states that “important government objectives” to protect people’s health, safety and privacy justify the establishment of gender-segregated spaces consistent with these definitions.

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Associated Press writer Amy Hanson of Helena, Montana contributed to this story.

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