Transheuser-Busch
2023-06-24 20:52:02 UTC
There is no such thing as a transgender. Anybody who says there is
should culled from society and tossed in a furnace.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) Transgender people born in Kansas could be preventedshould culled from society and tossed in a furnace.
from changing their birth certificates to reflect their gender identities
if the states conservative Republican attorney is successful with a legal
move he launched late Friday.
Attorney General Kris Kobach filed a request in federal court asking a
judge to end a requirement for Kansas to allow transgender people to
change their birth certificates. He is not seeking to undo past changes,
only prevent them going forward.
U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree imposed the requirement in 2019 to
settle a lawsuit filed by four transgender Kansas residents against three
state health department officials. The suit challenged a policy that
critics said prevented transgender people from making changes even after
transitioning, legally changing their names and obtaining new drivers
licenses and Social Security cards.
Luc Bensimon, a Black transgender activist who was one of the plaintiffs
in that lawsuit, said Saturday he was already getting calls and emails
from people trying to change their birth certificates who are concerned
they wont be able to complete the process.
We didnt go through that case just to have him try and change it now,
Bensimon said. I thought this was already dealt with but I have the
energy to go back and deal with it again if we have to.
It wasnt clear whether Kobachs effort would succeed, given a U.S.
Supreme Court decision in 2020 declaring a federal law barring sex
discrimination in employment also prevents discrimination based on sexual
orientation or gender identity.
Also in 2020, federal judges in Idaho and Ohio struck down rules against
transgender people changing their birth certificates. But this month,
federal judges in Tennessee and Oklahoma dismissed challenges to two of
the nations few remaining state policies against such changes.
Kobachs move appears to be in keeping with a new, sweeping Kansas law
taking effect July 1 that rolls back transgender rights and was enacted by
the Republican-controlled Legislature over Democratic Gov. Laura Kellys
veto. A memo filed electronically with the request by Kobach shortly
before midnight cited the law as a reason to revisit the 2019 settlement.
Kellys office did not immediately return a message Saturday seeking
reaction to Kobachs decision.
The memo argued Crabtrees order makes it impossible to follow the new
state law and that since the Legislature has spoken, the state health
department, which handles birth certificates, is now bound to execute the
law as written.
Kobach already had scheduled a Monday afternoon news conference at the
Statehouse to discuss enforcement of the new law.
Crabtrees 2019 order blocked a policy imposed by former Republican Gov.
Sam Brownbacks administration that was among the toughest against birth
certificate changes in the U.S. Kelly is a strong supporter of LGBTQ+
rights and her administration agreed to settle the lawsuit less than six
months after she took office.
That decision came almost a year after Crabtree declared the Kansas policy
violated transgender peoples constitutional rights to due legal process
and equal treatment under the law. His order notes that federal courts in
Idaho and Puerto Rico had struck down no-change policies. Kobachs memo
called those rulings outdated.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and the LGBTQ+-rights legal
group Lambda Legal, representing the four Kansas residents, condemned
Kobachs move. Lamda Legals Omar Gonzalez-Pagan called it unnecessary
and cruel.
Kansas ACLU Executive Director Micah Kubic added in a statement: Mr.
Kobach should rethink the wisdom and the sheer indecency of this
attempt to weaponize his offices authority to attack transgender Kansans
just trying to live their lives.
The new Kansas law is designed to prevent transgender people from using
restrooms, locker rooms and other single-gender facilities associated with
their identities. At least nine other states have such laws, mostly
focused on public schools.
Kobach has said he believes the new Kansas law also prevents transgender
people from changing their drivers licenses, though the law contains no
specific enforcement mechanisms. Lawmakers wrote the bill so it could
prevent transgender people from changing their birth certificates, except
for the 2019 federal court order, without specifically mentioning either
birth certificates or drivers licenses.
For weeks, a project of Kansas Legal Services, a nonprofit law firm,
encouraged transgender Kansans to change their drivers licenses before
the new law took effect. Kellys administration, which oversees the
licensing of drivers, hasnt said whether it believes such changes would
still be allowed under the new law.
Ellen Bertels, the attorney spearheading the effort, said that while a
transgender person could sue after the law takes effect to protect
peoples right to change their drivers licenses, a lawsuit from a state
official against Kellys administration could seek to prevent such
changes.
As for birth certificates, the small number of states not allowing
transgender people to change them shrunk through previous federal court
challenges like the one in Kansas.
The ACLU of Montana says it plans to challenge a rule imposed there last
year barring people from changing the sex listed on their birth
certificates.
LGBTQ+ rights advocates say changing birth certificates, drivers licenses
and other records to reflect a transgender persons gender identity is key
to affirming their identities and often greatly improves their mental
health.
Policies against changing birth certificates and other documents have
practical implications for transgender residents, too. For example, Kansas
requires voters to show a photo ID at the polls or when obtaining an
absentee ballot.
Critics of the new Kansas law contend it is designed to legally erase
transgender people.
It declares that state law recognizes only two genders, male and female,
and defines them based on a persons biological reproductive system at
birth. A woman is someone whose system is designed to produce ova, while
a male only is someone with a system designed to fertilize the ova of a
female.
The law then declares important governmental objectives of protecting
peoples health safety and privacy justify having sex-segregated spaces in
line with those definitions.
https://apnews.com/article/kansas-transgender-birth-certificates-
f9723de7460ab5fe71b3e80ba7854046