A new Kansas law effective Thursday requires the use of biological sex in government restrooms and documents in order to protect women and girls and to reflect reality in state records.
Around 3,500 transgender driver’s licenses and birth certificates are now considered invalid under the new law, SB 244, according to AP News.
Such documents as existing birth certificates and driver’s licenses that don’t comply should be reissued with the correct information, the bill states.
Transgender residents should’ve received a mail notice if their license is no longer usable. According to a photo of it in a Facebook post by transgender state Rep. Abi Boatman, D-Wichita, there’s no “grace period for updating credentials,” so the documents are considered invalid immediately.
Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the bill but was overturned by a supermajority vote.
The new law specifically requires people to use the restroom that corresponds with their biological sex in government buildings and schools.
Kansas Family Voice wrote on X the bill protects “the privacy, safety, and dignity of Kansas women and girls.”
Less than 1% of the American adult population is transgender, according to a study cited by KMBC. In Kansas, 0.56% of people are transgender and Missouri has the smallest state percentage in the United States, 0.2%.
Biologically male Johnson County Pride Chapter Chair Hazel Krebbs told KMBC the new law makes him feel marginalized and sometimes using women’s restrooms is difficult.
“I overhear comments, I have been yelled at a few times, but I just keep going like, I love my life.”
Krebbs said women don’t have anything to fear from trans people in their restrooms.
“I mean, I fear men just as much as other women out there.”
State Rep. Susan Humphries, R-Wichita, supported the law and helped overturn the veto.
“It’s not necessarily about the trans community,” she told KMBC. “I think women and girls need to feel safe. They need to feel protected.”
Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson agreed with Humphries, telling The Heartlander earlier in February, “It has nothing to do with anybody who’s struggling with gender dysphoria, and everything to do about our women and young girls. It’s a protective bill, right? I don’t know where common sense has gone.”
Masterson had posted on X after the Senate’s override of Kelly’s veto Feb. 17 that “the Kansas Senate restored sanity and overrode Laura Kelly’s dangerous veto of SB 244 that would have forced our mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters to share their bathrooms with biological men in government buildings.”
