Kansas Trans Woman Stripped Of Accurate License Fined For Inaccurate One
Earlier this year, the state of Kansas functionally revoked driver's licenses from its trans residents by invalidating any license that didn't match a resident's birth gender — a move the state copied from Florida's 2024 rule change. Now that law has fully gone into effect, and it's had a harrowing effect on trans Kansans. Even trans residents who changed out their IDs for the legally-mandated information are being taken to court over their paperwork.
Kris Ritter, a trans woman unlucky enough to live under Kansas law, was pulled over on May 5th for driving with her headlights turned off in the rain according to Transitics. The officer that pulled her over didn't believe her license was real, owing to its male gender marker, but seemed to leave without issuing any formal citation — that is, until Ritter got a letter stating she'd missed a court appearance for her charge of driving without a valid driver's license.
Kansas doesn't want its trans residents
The charge of driving without a valid license no longer carries a mandatory prison sentence in Kansas, after a 2023 bill, but it still comes with a risk of a prison sentence: Up to 90 days for leaving your valid license at home, or up to six months for driving with no license whatsoever. Forcing a trans woman to confront the risk of prison — and the associated risks of being used as institutionally-encouraged rape bait to placate violent inmates — for driving with a legal-yet-unbelievable license that shows a gender that's no longer accurate is a form of hell that Kansas has decided to subject all its trans residents to.
Thankfully, Ritter's specific case has already been dismissed by the county according to Transitics. It stands, however, as an example of the risks all trans people face by simply operating a motor vehicle in the state of Kansas. Any bumbling cop can see the driver's license you had to get under state law, not believe its inaccurate information, and send you to court over it. As so many have said regarding trans laws: The cruelty is the point.