Kansas

"The law extends beyond identification cards. It requires transgender people to use bathrooms and locker rooms in public buildings that correspond to their sex assigned at birth. “Instead of meeting the needs of their constituents, Kansas lawmakers have prioritized cruelty,” HRC President Kelley Robinson said after the legislation’s passage. For many residents, the consequences are immediate and practical. A driver’s license is not merely permission to operate a vehicle; it is a key to employment, housing, air travel, and voter participation. Kansas requires photo identification to vote, meaning the sudden invalidation of IDs could disrupt civic participation. The policy also places people in legal limbo. Under Kansas law, driving without a valid license is a misdemeanor that can carry fines or possible jail time. The state’s own letter emphasizes that filing an appeal “will not preserve the validity of your current credential and associated driving authority.” For transgender Kansans now scrambling to replace essential documents, the inconvenience is anything but abstract. “We apologize for the inconvenience this causes you,” it concludes."

"According to Reuters, the change affects transgender residents whose gender markers on driver’s licenses and birth certificates had previously been corrected. Kansas officials have estimated roughly 1,700 driver’s licenses and a similar number of birth certificates are impacted, according to the Kansas City Star. The law also bars future changes to gender markers on those documents and requires residents to pay for replacement credentials. Kansas now stands apart nationally. While several GOP-controlled states have blocked future updates to gender markers, Kansas is retroactively voiding documents already issued in a rare and expansive step that effectively erases prior legal recognition. Kansas’s current stance marks a dramatic reversal from where the state stood just seven years ago. In June 2019, after a federal lawsuit, Kansas agreed to allow transgender residents to update the sex listed on their birth certificates to match their gender identity. That policy was one of the last in a series of incremental legal recognitions of transgender rights in the state before subsequent litigation and Republican-led legislation began rolling it back."

"During the war prominent Kansans continued to be critical of federal policies. The "unconditional surrender" goals of Roosevelt and Morgenthaus plan to reduce Germany to a potato patch after the war drew savage criticism from Landon. At the beginning of the war he had denounced Roosevelts "guess and be damned" approach to international affairs, and in 1944 before a Sabetha audience he scored the Big Three meetings and the President: "It is a delusion to say he has been holding his own with either Stalin or Churchill, to say nothing of both."

"I grew up in Kansas, General. Im about as American as it gets."

"Contrary to popular belief, men were drafted in Kansas, although it really was not necessary. Under Lincolns final call of December 19, 1864, the state was asked for 3,636 men, but it was discovered that the adjutant generals figures were incorrect and the number was reduced to 1,222. A re-examination of the figures still showed that Kansas had a surplus on all earlier calls, but by then more than 100 men had been conscripted. Several towns paid a total of $57,407 in the form of enlistment bounties, which was the smallest sum paid in any state. There were 8,498 casualties, and Kansas had the highest mortality rate of any of the states in the Union."

"As of Thursday, transgender people in Kansas whose driver’s licenses do not reflect their sex assigned at birth are breaking the law if they drive, after the Republican-controlled legislature stripped them of previously valid credentials by overriding Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of a sweeping new measure. More than 1,500 residents are affected, and the change took effect immediately with no grace period. “This is what fascism looks like," the Human Rights Campaign said in a post on Instagram. The letters notifying trans residents of the move are blunt, bureaucratic, and devastating in their implications. “If you have received this notice,” the Kansas Division of Vehicles tells transgender residents, “your current Kansas credential will no longer be valid.”"

"Over the last five years, dozens of states have considered bills targeting transgender people, but the majority of those have targeted people’s ability to play on school sports teams that align with their gender identities and minors’ access to transition-related care. In the last few years, state and federal policies have shifted to focus on changing legal definitions of sex and restricting access to updated identity documents. Logan Casey, director of policy research at the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank that tracks legislation, described these broader laws as “gender regulation laws” that attack the fundamental rights and identity of trans people. “The point all along for the people pushing these bills and these attacks has been to single out transgender people and create a license to discriminate against transgender people and remove them from public life,” he said. “In effect, trying to get them to stop being transgender.”"

"SB 244 says that any driver’s license with a gender marker that is inconsistent with sex at birth is invalid as of February 26, 2026. The law contains no grace period. The Kansas Department of Revenue (KDOR) must provide written notice to anyone whose license is affected by this law, and many people have already received a letter informing them that their state-issued driver’s license is now invalid."

"Kansans have always taken their history seriously. The slavery controversy left an indelible mark upon the inhabitants, who were inordinately proud of the role their state had played. The heavy influx of veterans after 1865 served to keep that sentiment alive. Early writers concentrated on territorial days and sought to interpret Kansas history solely in terms of a highly idealistic struggle to save not only the territory but the whole country from slavery. The careers of early residents were eulogistically written; Kansas developed its own hagiography."

"Kansas’ law took effect immediately after it was published in the register Feb. 26. A spokesperson for the Kansas Department of Revenue told the Kansas Reflector that the law invalidated about 1,700 licenses. The department did not respond to a request for comment. During the court hearing Friday, Kobach said the department had so far sent letters to 275 Kansans and 138 had received new licenses. Andrea Ellis, a 34-year-old trans woman living in Wellington, said she received a letter Wednesday even though she never changed the gender marker on her license — she only legally changed her name on it in December. She drove to the DMV the next day, where she said staff were confused about what to do and said her license had a “flag” on it. They cut the corner off her license and gave her a temporary one. But later that day, they called her and said she had to return to the DMV because they made an error. When she went back, she said they gave her another temporary license that looked the same as the first. “They claim that it was thought out, and everything else, but there was no grace period unlike any other kind of rollout program,” Ellis said. “There was no plan whatsoever.”"

"V-J Day was hailed with prayer and rejoicing in Kansas, and the people prepared to enjoy the fruits of victory. Would the spirit of isolationism return to Kansas? Many felt that it would, but a new spirit seemed to be sweeping the prairies. On June 26, 1949, an article by Kenneth S. Davis appeared in the New York Times Magazine in which he spoke of the "burgeoning internationalism" in Kansas. Eisenhower hailed the new Kansas spirit, which, he claimed, was of world significance. Kansas, geographically and spiritually the heart of the United States, stood balanced at the midpoint of a nation, which faced toward Europe and Asia. He predicted that Kansas was in a decisive and strategic position to determine national policies. Along these lines, Milton Eisenhower became an important figure in UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), and it was through his leadership that Kansas became the first state to call a conference and establish and organization for the advancement of its work."

"Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam, Where the deer and the antelope play, Where seldom is heard a discouraging word And the skies are not cloudy all day."