Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach filed a petition in federal court asking a judge to end a mandate requiring Kansas to allow transgender individuals to alter their birth certificates.
If Kobach is successful, those who identify as transgender could be prevented from altering their birth certificates to reflect their gender identities if the state’s Republican attorney general is successful with the legal move he initiated on June 23. He does not seek to reverse past alterations, only to prevent their occurrence in the future.
Critics asserted that the challenged policy prevented transgender people from legally changing their identities and procuring new driver’s licenses and Social Security cards after transitioning.
Kobach’s move appears to be in line with a new, comprehensive Kansas legislation that takes effect July 1.
Even though Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the rule, the Republican-controlled Legislature overrode the veto, keeping the restrictions in place.
Kobach arranged a Monday afternoon news conference at the Statehouse to discuss enforcement of the new legislation.
The Kansas attorney general is attempting to change a 2019, decision (pdf) by U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree which imposed the requirement to resolve a lawsuit brought by four transgender residents of Kansas against three state health department officials.
The agreement ended the federal lawsuit filed in October 2018 by four individuals who identify as transgender and the Kansas Statewide Transgender Education Project against the state Department for Health and Environment, who are responsible for issuing birth certificates.
That decision reversed a policy enacted by conservative Republican Gov. Sam Brownback that made Kansas one of the states with the strictest regulations for changing a birth certificate’s gender. Lambda Legal, a national pro-LGBT organization, represented the individuals and group suing Kansas.
The Kansas lawsuit alleged that the state’s policy violated the equal protection and due process rights of transgender individuals. It also stated that denying to allow alterations sent “an ideological message” and compelled transgender people to identify with the sex that was “incorrectly assigned to them” at birth, thereby violating their right to free expression.
The four Kansas residents’ attorneys, the ACLU of Kansas and Lambda Legal, denounced Kobach’s action. Critics of the new Kansas law say that it is meant to make transgender people disappear from the law.
LGBT activists say that changing a transgender person’s birth certificate, driver’s license, and other records to match their gender identity is a key part of recognizing their identities and often makes a big difference in their mental health.
When it comes to birth records, the number of states that don’t let transgender people change them has gone down, thanks to federal court cases like the one in Kansas.
The ACLU of Montana says it will fight a rule from last year that says people can’t change what their birth certificate says about their gender.
Given a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that a federal statute against sex discrimination in work also prohibits sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination, Kobach’s endeavor was uncertain.
Federal justices in Idaho and Ohio overturned transgender birth certificate restrictions in 2020. This month, federal judges in Tennessee and Oklahoma rejected challenges to two of the few remaining state rules banning such modifications.
According to the 2019 suit, the Brownback administration’s policy prevented transgender individuals from obtaining new driver’s licenses and Social Security cards causing critics to argue that the policy made it more difficult for transgender people to register to vote and enroll their children in public institutions.
Kobach joined a coalition of 16 states to challenge a proposed HHS rule that would allow certain unlawful aliens to receive Obamacare. Under Kobach’s leadership, a coalition of attorneys general urged the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to withdraw the proposed rule pending judicial review.
“The Biden administration is seeking to flagrantly violate federal law by providing Obamacare benefits to illegal aliens. This is one more example of the administration willfully attacking the rule of law in immigration,” Kobach said in his press release.
The attorneys general are opposed to the proposed rule because federal law prohibits recipients of deferred action from receiving federal benefits. The attorneys general also contend that, under the Immigration and Nationality Act, deferred deportation recipients lack lawful immigration status.
“Aliens granted deferred action, including those in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program created by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)… are not included with Congress’s definition of ‘qualified alien,’ nor do they fall within an exception to the prohibition on public benefits,” the comment letter reads. “…Indeed, Congress broadly prohibited non-qualified aliens from receiving any federal public benefit ‘not withstanding any other provision of law.’”
ACLU Kansas responded to the June 23 move by saying they “vehemently condemned” Kobach’s motion, according to the press release sent to The Epoch Times.
“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,” said Micah Kubic, executive director of the ACLU of Kansas. “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.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.