Kansas voided 1,700 licenses. Now its anti-trans law is being tested in court

Intersex and transgender Kansans are taking their challenge to the state’s driver’s license and restroom restrictions to court this week.

In a lawsuit backed by the ACLU of Kansas, plaintiffs seek to block a sweeping law that invalidated driver’s licenses bearing gender markers that differ from a person’s sex assigned at birth and restricts restroom use in government buildings. As plaintiffs told The Washington Post, the ID requirement has exposed them to scrutiny in ordinary interactions, even after they complied with the law.

Dakota West had held a driver’s license identifying her as female for just five months when the state told her in February that it was invalid. West is an intersex woman who was born with XY chromosomes but whose body does not respond to male hormones. She never went through male puberty.

Related: Kansas anti-trans law forced her license to say male. Then a cop questioned it and she was charged

“I really felt targeted, which I think was the intention of the Kansas state legislature,” West told the Post.

West is among the plaintiffs challenging the law. State officials said roughly 1,700 intersex and transgender Kansans received notices that their licenses were invalid.

The law has also produced confusion during traffic stops. Kris Ripper, a transgender woman who obtained a license listing her as male to comply with the law, said an officer questioned whether the ID was real. A charge of driving without a valid license was later dismissed. In a separate case, a judge temporarily restored transgender driver Jamie Miller’s driving privileges, finding that the state likely denied her due process when it invalidated her license. That ruling did not decide whether Miller must change its gender marker.

The challenge to the law is being heard this week in Lawrence. Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, a Republican, has argued that the state can require its identification documents to reflect a person’s sex assigned at birth.

Related: Kansas law voided her license because she’s transgender. The state’s chaos helped her win it back

Questions about the restroom provision have reached Kobach’s office, too. In an opinion earlier this year, he said the restrictions do not apply to certain private spaces in government facilities and urged lawmakers to clarify the statute. “If your answer relies on finding an ambiguity in Senate Bill 244 with the term ‘facilities,’ we ask that you work with the Legislature in the 2027 session to clarify this ambiguity,” he wrote to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s office. Kelly vetoed the law, but Republican lawmakers overrode her veto.

Plaintiffs say the requirements intrude on their family lives. Cameron Broyles, a transgender man, said the restroom restriction complicates outings with his 4-year-old son, who is too young to use a restroom alone.

“I’m not going to take my kids’ childhood from them just because Kansas wants to make something hard,” Broyles told the newspaper.