Transgender Kansans wasted no time responding today to the head-spinning revocation of their official documents, including drivers’ licenses and birth certificates, by suing to stop the new state law from going into effect.

The legislation, passed over the veto of the Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, invalidated those documents on Thursday, forcing trans Kansans to surrender their driver’s licenses or face steep penalties and misdemeanor charges.

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Kansas sends letters to trans people demanding they surrender their driver’s licenses

On Friday, two transgender Kansans asked a state judge to strike down the law, S.B. 244.

The measure “is a cruel and craven threat to public safety all in the name of fostering fear, division and paranoia,” said Harper Seldin, a senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the unnamed plaintiffs in the case.

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The plaintiffs are trans men, according to declarations filed with the complaint, and their driver’s licenses reflect their gender identity.

The men were among hundreds whose licenses don’t reflect their sex at birth who began receiving letters from the Kansas Division of Vehicles this week, informing them that, upon the publication of S.B. 244 in the Kansas Register on Thursday, their current licenses would be invalidated.

“Your current credential will be invalid immediately,’’ the letter stated, before directing recipients to “surrender your current credential” in exchange for one that reflects their birth sex. The department threatened legal penalties for those driving without a valid license.

About 1,700 driver’s license holders in Kansas are affected by the new law, according to state officials.

The plaintiffs’ suit focuses on the driver’s license provision in the new law and argues that denying accurate identifying information about their gender — just like name changes, military, or disability status for other Kansas drivers — is a violation of equal protection laws and infringes on freedom of expression.

“By forcing trans people, and only trans people, to have a license that says ‘F’ when they live their lives as men, or vice versa for trans women, it is requiring them to convey the state’s belief that transgender people don’t exist,’’ said the ACLU’s Seldin.

“This legislation is a direct attack on the dignity and humanity of transgender Kansans,” added Monica Bennett, the Kansas ACLU legal director. “It undermines our state’s strong constitutional protections against government overreach and persecution.”

As well as nullifying trans Kansans’ identity documents without notice, S.B. 244 also bans transgender people from using a restroom, locker room, or similar facility in government buildings that doesn’t correspond with their sex assigned at birth.

In a particularly prurient move, the bill outlaws gender-neutral restrooms with more than one toilet.

Republican anti-trans crusader Attorney General Kris Kobach was behind the ban on gender marker changes and the revocation of previously altered documents, after a state court struck down the very same provisions in a previous law, according to Missouri Lawyers Media.

Lawmakers then added the bill’s bathroom provisions through what’s known as a “gut-and-go” process that avoids a public hearing and the scrutiny that comes with it.

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