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Overnight, hundreds of people across one red state have been suddenly left without legal identification.
Transgender people living in Kansas began receiving letters this week notifying them that driver’s licenses and birth certificates that did not match their sex assigned at birth would be invalid starting on Thursday.
The sudden revocation of legally obtained IDs was the result of a new anti-trans law that was enacted after state lawmakers overrode the Democratic governor’s veto last week. The measure went into effect almost immediately after it passed — an unusual move in a state where new laws usually take effect on July 1 — offering no chance for people to come into compliance with the law.
The new law reportedly stripped approximately 1,500 transgender Kansans of their driver’s licenses, and another 1,800 birth certificates are also affected.
“There’s a lot of fear,” Harper Seldin, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union National LGBTQ+ Project, told JS. “It’s not clear from the letter what it means to have an invalid license.”
Illustration: JS; Photos: Associated Press
The vagueness and the novelty of the law mean that trans people in Kansas are scrambling to figure out what next steps they can take, and the long-term impacts of people suddenly losing their legal identification have yet to be realized. But the fact that Kansas legislators rushed to send the letters less than two weeks after overruling the governor’s veto makes it clear what lawmakers’ real goal is: chaos, confusion and panic.
It’s not immediately clear, for instance, what happens if a transgender Kansan gets pulled over by a police officer while driving.
“It puts folks in an impossible position,” Seldin said. “People who got this letter on Thursday still had to go to work on Friday. What are they supposed to do?” He said some of the affected people have been checking government websites to see if their licenses are still valid.
“The point of these laws is to make it impossible for trans people to be themselves and to know what to do to keep themselves safe.”
– Harper Seldin, American Civil Liberties Union National LGBTQ+ Project
Not only are the affected trans people left without a legal way to drive, but this will also impact transgender people’s ability to do the myriad things that could require identification. Without a valid form of ID, trans people in Kansas could be barred from everyday activities like filling out employment paperwork, getting on a plane, buying a bottle of wine or opening a bank account. Then there’s the fact that Kansas is one of the 36 states that require photo IDs to vote, potentially creating new barriers to voting in the months before the upcoming midterm elections.
“This law is unnecessary and dangerous. When it comes to identification documents, transgender people use them for the same reasons as anyone else – IDs allow us the freedom to travel, work, and drive. And just like everyone else, our IDs need to match who we are so that we can simply move through our lives without issue,” Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, the senior vice president of public engagement campaigns at the Trevor Project, a national LGBTQ+ youth support organization, said in a statement to JS.
“This law is meant to cause fear and confusion, but I want every transgender person in Kansas to know that there is a coalition of leaders, legal experts, and advocates fighting back.”
Kansas’ first-of-its-kind law represents the culmination of years of conservative lawmakers attacking transgender people and working to erase them from public life. “SB 244 is a sweeping law that has the goal of pushing transgender people out of civil society by making it impossible for them to be themselves in public spaces,” said Seldin. The ACLU filed a lawsuit on Friday against the state, asking for a halt to the policy.
Not only does the law retroactively invalidate licenses and birth certificates that were obtained legally, but it also prohibits transgender people from using the bathroom that matches their gender identity in government buildings, with civil and criminal penalties for violations. The new measure can also be enforced by the general public, as it allows individuals to sue for alleged violations.
“The point of these laws is to make it impossible for trans people to be themselves and to know what to do to keep themselves safe,” Seldin added.
The Republican Party is currently in the grip of a faux moral panic about trans people. A record-breaking 1,022 anti-trans bills were introduced around the country in 2025, with GOP-led states leading the pack. So far this year, a whopping 711 have already been brought to legislative floors in 41 different states.
The attacks on the trans community are coming from the federal government as well. On his first day back in office, Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that there are only two non-changeable sexes, and the State Department halted passport applications with the “X” gender marker.
Republican lawmakers in Kansas see the policy as another culture war battle they’ve won. After the legislature overrode Gov. Laura Kelly (D) to enact the law, Republican state Sen. Ty Masterson released a statement saying Kelly’s veto was “dangerous” and “would have forced our mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters to share their bathrooms with biological men in government buildings. Kansas Democrats are for They/Them. I will continue to fight for you, and protect women and girls across our state.”
Republicans may be hoping they will only terrorize trans people with these policies for identification. Still, human rights advocates are warning that SB 244 will not only harm trans people but also other marginalized groups.
“Forcing people into the wrong bathrooms, stripping them of accurate IDs, and allowing government-sanctioned harassment doesn’t make anyone safer,” Kelley Robinson, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement after the law passed. “It targets transgender Kansans for no reason and will undoubtedly impact many others who are targeted with animus whether or not they are transgender.”
Seldin said that pausing the law’s enactment so that people have time to make sure their identification complies with the law would only solve the legal issue — not the uncertainty and anxiety the law has caused.
“Even for folks who do bring themselves into compliance, it puts trans people in immense danger,” he said.
“Trans people who have licenses that have a sex marker that doesn’t match how they present because it matches their sex assigned at birth, that outs them as transgender immediately,” he said. “It subjects them to scrutiny, to violence, to harassment.”
