Kansas Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach sued on Friday to force Gov. Laura Kelly and the state of Kansas to prohibit transgender individuals from changing the listed sex on their driver's license.
Kobach says a law that took effect on Saturday makes such changes illegal, and requires that the state reverse previous cases of such changes in its records.
The lawsuit does not name Gov. Kelly as a defendant, but it does pin responsibility for enforcing the state's license laws on her.
"The Governor cannot pick and choose which laws she will enforce and which laws she will ignore," the suit reads.
Kansas would be one of only a handful of states that restricts such sex changes on licenses. Only Montana and Tennessee have similar laws that bar changes to a license holder's sex.
LGBTQ+ advocates, businesses sue Montana over Drag Story Hour ban
Plaintiffs claim HB 359 is not only "impermissibly vague" and "unconstitutional," but it violates their First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
The Associated Press reports about 400 people in Kansas have changed the listed sex on their driver's licenses this year, many of them in a recent push by LGBTQ+ advocates who spread news of impending changes to state law.
That law, which Gov. Kelly vetoed and was then overridden on a week later, defines an individual's sex as either male or female as assigned at birth. It applies its rules to "any state law or rules and regulations."
The governor's office said the Kansas Health Department and the Department of Motor Vehicles would continue to allow transgender people to change their listed sexes on birth certificates and driver's licenses. Lawyers in the governor's office said that step did not violate the new law.
