Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach filed a request in federal court late Friday seeking to end requirements for the state to allow the altering of gender on birth certificates.
The requirement to allow transgender people to update their state-issued documents was established in 2019 after a lawsuit involving four trans individuals and the Kansas Department for Health and Environment.
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The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and the LGBTQ+-rights legal group, Lambda Legal, condemned Kobach’s move.
“No matter how much Attorney General Kobach and extremists in our state legislature may wish to, they cannot erase the fundamental protections the Constitution guarantees to every single LGBTQ+ Kansan,” Micah Kubic, Executive Director of the ACLU of Kansas said. “Mr. Kobach should rethink the wisdom—and the sheer indecency—of this attempt to weaponize his office’s authority to attack transgender Kansans just trying to live their lives.”
Kubic added, “What was true in 2019 remains true today: the state of Kansas cannot pick and choose which constitutionally protected rights it will recognize, and to deny any constitutional right to LGBTQ+ Kansans is unconstitutional and antithetical to our shared values. It’s troubling to see Mr. Kobach cynically seize an opportunity for political gain that will no doubt ultimately be another round of continuing legal education for him.”
Lambda Legal Counsel and Health Care Strategist Omar Gonzalez-Pagan called Kobach’s efforts a “gimmick” and “unnecessary and cruel.”
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“Today’s action represents yet another unnecessary and cruel move to target the transgender community with animus and discrimination for political gain,” Gonzalez-Pagan said.
Kobach’s legal efforts coincide with a new Kansas law taking effect on July 1—defining an individual’s “sex” to correspond with their biological sex, either male or female as deisgnated at birth. The bill defines biological sex in areas like restrooms, locker rooms, prisons, rape crisis centers and domestic violence centers.
