American laws are normalizing discrimination against transgender people. Who’s next?

Imagine driving home from work, opening your mail, and learning that your driver’s license is now invalid because it lists you as male, but the state believes you are female. Before you get behind the wheel again, even in an emergency, you must go to the motor vehicles office and get a new license with an “F” gender marker. If you don’t do this and are stopped by a police officer, you can be charged with a misdemeanor for driving without a valid license. If you do get a new license, the officer might accuse you of fraud because you look like a man, have a male name, and nothing about you suggests that you should have a driver’s license indicating you are a woman.

This is the living nightmare for transgender people in Kansas, where a new law abruptly took effect in late February. On March 10, a Kansas court refused to impose a temporary block on the law, saying the transgender individuals who challenged the law under the state’s constitution had not shown they needed emergency relief. Asserting that transgender Kansans would not be immediately vulnerable, the court wrote that “the vast majority of Kansans are tolerant, understanding, accepting and generally supportive of each other,” an astonishing statement that suggests the rights of transgender people depend not on the law but the tolerance of their neighbors.

Related: Kansas immediately revokes transgender residents’ driver’s licenses

The law’s sweeping changes revoke drivers' licenses and birth certificates that transgender people had updated to reflect their gender identity — updates that the state had permitted for many years. The law also prohibits transgender people from using bathrooms in public buildings that align with their gender identity and emboldens bounty hunters by inviting them to sue any transgender person who enters the “wrong” restroom.

This might look like ordinary culture war politics, but what’s happening is far more threatening, not just for transgender people but for everyone. Law is being used to whip up anger toward transgender people by blaming them for an array of general societal concerns, from sexual abuse to fraud, from school shootings to national security threats. Law is supposed to fix real problems. When governments tell us it’s okay to use law to target one group of people, there is little reason to think it will cut itself off from targeting others.

Kansas is far from alone in using its laws to cordon off transgender people. When the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming healthcare last June, the state had 14 other restrictions on transgender people either proposed or enacted into law.

The Trump Administration has likewise relentlessly used its power, from executive orders to agency enforcement, to reverse existing protections, add new forms of discrimination, and intimidate states that are trying to protect their own transgender residents.

Related: Kansas judge refuses to block law voiding transgender residents’ drivers’ licenses & policing bathrooms

Usually, scapegoating happens when the media and a society’s leaders spread a narrative that blames a group for whatever’s troubling the public. Law then follows up by codifying public antagonism toward the group.

But here, the law is in the lead. No one — not the public, not government agencies, not even lawmakers — has been reporting problems arising from transgender people having accurate driver’s licenses or passports. To the contrary, requiring a transgender man to have an “F” on his identity documents not only insults his dignity, but also creates confusion and danger because the license no longer matches the person it belongs to.

This is legal scapegoating at work. We are seeing, in real-time, the use of law to normalize the idea of controlling a vulnerable group, and we are being told that this legal control is both “common sense” and necessary for the health and well-being of our communities and nation.

Related: Two transgender men sue Kansas government over law voiding driver's licenses

Can our democratic processes prevent the law from being used to inflame and enforce hostility toward vulnerable groups? At the end of the day, each of us is vulnerable in one way or another. To protect both our families and our nation, it is time to look past the inflammatory headlines about transgender people, immigrants, and others, and oppose this use of law that fans hostile flames and puts us all at risk.

Suzanne B. Goldberg is a professor at Columbia Law School and director of the school’s sexuality and gender law clinic.

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