TOPEKA, Kan.—The Kansas Department of Revenue’s vehicles division has begun sending letters to trans people stating that their driver’s licenses are going to be invalidated in the coming days. New licenses will need to be issued to 1,800 people.
The licenses were invalidated following the passage of the controversial SB 244 bill in the Kansas legislature. In addition to instigating the recent driver’s license shutdown, it also contained provisions for restricting bathroom access for trans people and for making trans bathroom goers on public properties vulnerable to lawsuits from civilian bathroom goers.
The letters also stated that the “Legislature did not include a grace period for updating credentials,” and that individuals may be “subject to additional penalties if you are operating a vehicle without a valid credential.”
The legislature bypassed popular consultation with a “gut and go” procedure. SB 244 was originally introduced in February 2025 to codify new rules for bail bonds. One year later, in January 2026, the Kansas House of Representatives substituted the original bill with the current bathroom and driver’s license measures. Public comment periods on the driver’s license and bathroom measures were severely truncated, with only a single public hearing on January 13, with 24 hours’ notice.
Topeka Mayor Duncan Spencer complained that this rushed draft would cost “millions of dollars across the state” for cities to replace signage and administrative infrastructure while leaving details about the implementation and enforcement mechanisms unexplained. The bill was vetoed by the Democratic governor, Laura Kelly, due to being “poorly drafted,” but the veto was overridden by the Republican supermajorities in the House and Senate.
The move follows an extensive far-right attack on LGBTQ rights all over the United States, ranging from bathroom bans, healthcare attacks, discriminating against same-sex marriages, assaults on trans athletes, and a broader assault on DEI institutions.
Kansas is a state that has voter ID laws, so the Kansan trans community will be forced to change their driver’s license if they want to vote in the primaries and midterms in August and November, respectively.
Transgender Democratic state Rep. Abi Boatman proclaimed, “The persecution is the point.”
Matthew Neuman, the executive director of the LGBTQ Foundation of Kansas, questioned why the legislature needed to “target marginalized communities.”
Transgender University of Kansas student Anthony Alvarez, who’s changed his driver’s license four times since 2023 because of Kansas’s assault on trans rights, stressed the “draconian” nature of the law, noting that the law will out trans people to “every single person” who checks driver’s licenses, increasing trans people’s exposure to potentially transphobic officials and letting the state “police trans Kansans using their neighbors.”
To support the trans people affected by SB 244, the LGBTQ Foundation of Kansas is already fundraising to cover driver’s license renewal fees. On the legal front, the ACLU has filed a lawsuit challenging SB 244’s validity under the Kansas Constitution’s privacy rights.
“SB 244 is a cruel and craven threat to public safety all in the name of fostering fear, division, and paranoia,” said Harper Seldin, Senior Staff Attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project. “Taken as a whole, SB 244 is a transparent attempt to deny transgender people autonomy over their own identities and push them out of public life altogether.”
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