The bill, known as SB 244, also bans transgender people from using bathrooms in public buildings that match their gender identity, and creates a sort of bounty hunter system, in which citizens can sue transgender people they encounter in restrooms for $1,000 in damages.
The bill’s passage also coincides with increased national attacks on the rights of transgender Americans, including a national policy enforced by the Trump administration that blocks transgender and non-binary people from choosing passport sex markers aligning with their gender identity.
The notification, sent by the Kansas department of revenue, under which the division of motor vehicles operates, also notes that the state legislature “did not include a grace period for updating credentials”, and anyone operating a vehicle without a valid credential “may be subject to additional penalties”.
The naked cruelty of this. No grace period. A bounty system.
This is going to hit Kansas trans men particularly hard as they are either going to have cops called on them for using the “correct” bathroom or get ratted out by peers if they use the one they can usually access without any hassle. Since they have immediate “proof” cops can use to fine them in the form of id they are going to vulnerable to being beggared by fines or arrested and physically abused.
I once remember a very stealth trans guy at a club having to use the Womens washroom because the stall toilet was out in the mens and I’d never seen anybody so nervous. He had a female presenting friend with him to explain the situation to folks in the space and it was a reasonably queer friendly establishment, everybody was super understanding and did a “you do you”, but even in that safe situation he was shrunk in on himself with such scared body language just because a toilet was out of service.
There wasn’t even a law.
What if he was in a hostile place? What if his friend wasn’t there? What if he had to worry about fines? I think about him whenever bathroom bans come up.