Senate Bill 180 will reverse gender markers on driving licences and birth certificates for trans individuals
BY ELLA GAUCI, IMAGE BY NICKY EBBAGE
Kansas passed a new law on 26 June which will force trans people to identify as their assigned gender at birth on all legal documentation such as driving licences and birth certificates. Senate Bill 180 will come into effect on 1 July.
The law will also make schools record students by their gender assigned at birth, regardless of the gender that the child identifies as. The new legislation defines “sex” as being “either male or female at birth”, excluding trans or non-binary voices from the new ruling.
This new law also means that trans people will have to use the public bathroom that corresponds to the gender they were assigned at birth. Republican representative Brenda Landwehr said this new bill would “protect women’s spaces currently reserved for women and men’s spaces currently reserved for men”.
Senator Renee Erickson added: “You can choose whatever name you want. You can choose to live however you want. That does not make you a woman.”
Kansas’ new legislation follows a disturbing and worrying trend of anti-LGBTQIA laws which are appearing across across America such as Montana’s Senate Bill 458 which defines “sex” as something binary.
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