A judge has ordered Kansas to stop changing trans people’s sex listing on their driver’s licenses

TOPEKA, Kan. — A state-court judge on Monday ordered Kansas to stop allowing transgender people to change the listing for their sex on their driver’s licenses, ahead of the first hearing in a lawsuit filed by state’s Republican attorney general against the practice.

District Judge Teresa Watson issued the order three days after Attorney General Kris Kobach sued two officials in Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s administration over her announcement that the state’s motor vehicles division would continue changing driver’s licenses for transgender people so that the sex listing matches their gender identities. Kobach contends that a law, which took effect on July 1, prevents such changes and requires the state to reverse any previous changes in its records.

The order will stay in effect for up two weeks, although Watson can extend it. But the judge’s move is significant because transgender people have been able to change their driver’s licenses for four years, and almost 400 people have done so.

That new Kansas law defines a person’s sex as male or female, based on the “biological reproductive system” identified at birth, applying that definition to any state law or regulation. It also says that “important governmental objectives” of protecting people’s privacy, health and safety justify single-sex spaces such as bathrooms and locker rooms.

Kelly’s office has said attorneys for the motor vehicles division’s parent agency, the Kansas Department of Revenue, concluded that their practice of allowing changes by transgender people did not violate the law.

Watson, a judge in Shawnee County, home to the state capital of Topeka, said allowing the motor vehicles division to keep making changes for transgender people would case “immediate and irreparable injury.”

“Compliance with state legal requirements for identifying license holders is a public safety concern,” Watson wrote.