(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Kansas has formally nullified the driver’s licenses of more than 1,000 transgender-identifying individuals following a state law requiring residents to list their biological gender on identification.
Roughly 1,700 individuals were notified Monday by the Kansas Department of Revenue that the new law bars government documents from listing a gender different from the birth certificate.
“Please note that the Legislature did not include a grace period for updating credentials,” the department wrote in a letter, according to the Kansas City Star.
“That means that once the law is officially enacted, your current credentials will be invalid immediately, and you may be subject to additional penalties if you are operating a vehicle without a valid credential,” the letter added.
The law, named the 2026 ID Revocation Law or Senate Bill 244, was passed by GOP veto-proof supermajorities in the state legislature on Jan. 18.
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, vetoed the bill on Feb. 13, calling it “ridiculous” and “poorly drafted.”
“Not only will this bill keep brothers from visiting sisters’ dorms and husbands from wives’ shared hospital rooms, it will cost Kansas taxpayers millions of dollars to comply with this very vague legislation,” Kelly claimed at the time.
“It is nothing short of ridiculous that the Legislature is forcing the entire state, every city and town, every school district, every public university to spend taxpayer money on a manufactured problem,” she added.
In response Republicans in the state Senate voted 31-9 to override the veto, followed by the House, which voted 87-37.
The law also limits transgender-identifying individuals to government bathrooms that correspond to their biological gender and imposes fines on government bodies that violate it.
Additionally, it criminalizes repeat offenders with potential misdemeanors and allows civil legal action against individuals who encounter transgender-identifying people in those bathrooms.
State Senate President Ty Masterson, a Republican, called the law “restored sanity.” He countered Kelly’s claims, stating her veto “would have forced our mothers, sisters, wives and daughters to share their bathrooms with biological men in government buildings.”
The law effectively makes Kansas the first state to retroactively cancel driver’s licenses and IDs it previously issued to transgender-identifying individuals, according to reports.
