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kansas
Transgender Kansas Residents Sue Over State's Invalidation of Driver's Licenses
"SB 244 is a transparent attempt to deny transgender people autonomy over their own identities and push them out of public life altogether.”
Feb 27, 2026
Accusing Kansas Republican lawmakers of violating the state's Constitution and waging "a direct attack on the dignity and humanity of transgender Kansans" by passing a law that invalidates their driver's licenses, the ACLU on Friday filed a lawsuit on behalf of two transgender residents and called on a state judge to block the statute.
The organization took legal action a day after SB 244 went into effect, rendering the birth certificates and driver's licenses of about 1,700 Kansans invalid because they have been changed to reflect the gender identity of the people they were issued to, rather than their sex assigned at birth.
Transgender Kansans across the state received letters this week from the Kansas Department of Revenue instructing them to "surrender [their] current credential" and exchange it for one that matches their sex assigned at birth.
“Your current credential will be invalid immediately,’’ warns the letter, adding that driving without a valid license could result in penalties.
SB 244 also prohibits transgender Kansans from updating the gender marker on state-issued birth certificates and driver's licenses in the future, prohibits transgender people from using public restrooms that match their identity on government property, and allows anyone who suspects a transgender person is in violation of the law to sue the individual for damages of up to $1,000.
The bathroom provisions were added to SB 244 without a hearing or any public comment.
The state's Democratic governor, Laura Kelly, vetoed the legislation, but Republican legislators overrode her veto.
"A confident republic does not need to erase people to prove a point. It can hold together across deep differences without turning paperwork into a weapon."
Harper Seldin, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU's LGBTQ and HIV Rights Project, called the law "a cruel and craven threat to public safety all in the name of fostering fear, division, and paranoia."
“The invalidation of state-issued IDs threatens to out transgender people against their will every time they apply for a job, rent an apartment, or interact with police," said Seldin. "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.”
States including Texas, Florida, and Tennessee have laws requiring the gender marker on a person's driver's license to match their sex assigned at birth, but Kansas is the first state to invalidate the licenses of people who have changed the gender markers.
The law was passed as President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers denounce what they view as radical "gender ideology," including science-backed findings that a person's gender can be fluid and that gender-affirming healthcare can reduce depression and suicidal ideation.
In 2025, the ACLU tracked more than 600 anti-LGBTQ laws and proposals in states. At least 74 were passed into law.
In the lawsuit filed in the District Court of Douglas County, two anonymous plaintiffs identified as Daniel Doe and Matthew Moe argue that SB 244 violates the Kansas Constitution's guarantees of personal autonomy, privacy, equality under the law, due process, and freedom of speech.
They argue that the law is discriminatory and violates equal protection laws because other Kansans are free to change their name or choose whether or not to list other aspects of their identity, such disclosing veteran status or a disability, on their licenses.
One critic calledlled SB 244 "humiliation with a state seal."
"This does not make anyone safer on the road. It just forces people to carry documents that lie about who they are, and then punishes them when those lies put them at risk at traffic stops, pharmacies, airports," the social media user said. "A confident republic does not need to erase people to prove a point. It can hold together across deep differences without turning paperwork into a weapon."
Heather St. Clair, a lawyer with Ballard Spahr, a law firm helping to represent the plaintiffs, said the law amounts to "state-sanctioned attack on transgender people aimed at silencing, dehumanizing, and alienating Kansans whose gender identity does not conform to the state Legislature’s preferences."
Ballard Spahr, she said, "is dedicated to protecting the constitutional rights jeopardized by this new law.”
The plaintiffs are seeking a temporary restraining order and a temporary injunction to block the law from entering into force while the case is being decided.
The advocacy group Southern Equality applauded the legal challenge.
"We are grateful to the ACLU for filing a lawsuit against this heinous law in defense of trans Kansans," said Southern Equality. "We join in solidarity with trans people everywhere: You belong in public spaces, and we will not stand by while your rights are stripped away."
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Kansas Editor Hopes $3 Million Payout for Police Raids Stops Future Attacks on Press
"In our democracy, the press is a watchdog against abuse," said Marion County Record publisher Eric Meyer. "If the watchdog itself is the target of abuse, and all it does is roll over, democracy suffers.”
Nov 11, 2025
A Kansas county has agreed to pay $3 million over 2023 police raids of a local newspaper and multiple homes—one of which belonged to its elderly publisher, whose death shortly followed—sparking nationwide alarm over increasing attacks on the free press.
Marion County agreed to pay the seven-figure settlement and issue a formal apology to the publishers of the Marion County Record admitting that wrongdoing had occurred during the August 11, 2023 raids on the paper's newsroom and two homes.
The apology states that the Marion County Sheriff's Office "wishes to express its sincere regrets to Eric and Joan Meyer and Ruth and Ronald Herbel for its participation in the drafting and execution of the Marion Police Department’s search warrants on their homes and the Marion County Record. This likely would not have happened if established law had been reviewed and applied prior to the execution of the warrant."
Bernie Rhodes, an attorney for the Record, told the paper, "This is a first step—but a big step—in making sure that Joan Meyer’s death served a purpose, in making sure that the next crazed cop who thinks they can raid a newsroom understands the consequences are measured in millions of dollars."
Rhodes was referring to the 98-year-old Record co-owner, who was reportedly in good health for her age, but collapsed and died at her home in the immediate aftermath of the raid by Marion police and country sheriff's deputies.
"This is a first step—but a big step—in making sure that Joan Meyer’s death served a purpose."
Eric Meyer, Joan Meyer's son and the current publisher of the Record, said: “The admission of wrongdoing is the most important part. In our democracy, the press is a watchdog against abuse. If the watchdog itself is the target of abuse, and all it does is roll over, democracy suffers.”
According to the Record, awards include:
- $200,000 to Eric Meyer, whose home was raided and two computers and a cellphone seized;
- $250,000 to reporter Deb Gruver, whose cell phone was seized;
- $300,000 to the Record;
- $600,000 to reporter Phyllis Zorn, whose cell phone was seized;
- $650,000 to former vice mayor Ruth Herbel, whose computer and cell phone were seized, and her husband, Ron, whose dementia was aggravated by the raid on their home; and
- $1 million to the estate of Joan Meyer.
Record business manager Cheri Bentz—who suffered aggravation of health conditions following one of the raids—previously settled with the county for $50,000.
Katherine Jacobsen, the US, Canada, and Caribbean program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, hailed the settlement as "an important win for press freedom amid a growing trend of hostility toward those who hold power to account."
"Journalists must be able to work freely and without fear of having their homes raided and equipment seized due to the overreach of authorities," she added.
The raids—during which police seized the Record‘s electronic equipment, work product, and documentary materials—were conducted with search warrants related to an alleged identity theft investigation.
However, critics—who have called the warrants falsified and invalid—noted that the raids came as the Record investigated sexual misconduct allegations against then-Marion Police Chief Police Gideon Cody. The raids, they say, were motivated by Cody's desire to silence the paper's unfavorable reporting about him.
State District Judge Ryan Rosauer ruled last month that Cody likely committed a felony crime when he instructed a witness with whom he allegedly had an improper romantic relationship to delete text messages they exchanged before, during, and after the raids.
While Cody will not be tried in connection with Meyer's death or the 2023 raids, Rosauer ordered him to stand trial over the deleted texts.
Meyer at the time expressed dismay that Cody wasn't being tried for his mother's death or the raids. He also worried that Cody was being made a scapegoat, as other people and law enforcement agencies were involved in the incident.
Following the announcement of the settlement, Meyer said that "this never has been about money, the key issue always has been that no one is above the law."
"No one can trample on the First and Fourth Amendments for personal or political purposes and get away with it," he continued. "When my mother warned officers that the stress they were putting her under might lead to her death, she called what they were doing Hitler tactics."
"What keeps our democracy from descending as Germany did before World War II is the courage she demonstrated—and we’ve tried to continue—in fighting back," Meyer added.
"This never has been about money, the key issue always has been that no one is above the law."
Five consolidated federal civil rights lawsuits have been filed in the US District Court for the District of Kansas, alleging wrongful death, unlawful searches, retaliation for protected speech, and other claims tied to the raids.
“It’s a shame additional criminal charges aren’t possible,” Meyer said, “but the federal civil cases will do everything they can to discourage future abuses of power.”
Although unable to savor the Record's victory, Joan Meyer presciently told the officers raiding her home, "Boy, are you going to be in trouble."
“She was so right," said Rhodes.
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Outrage as GOP AGs Argue Fewer Pregnant Teens Deprive States of Population Increases
"This is what potentially winning right-wing legal cases read like these days," said one progressive activist. "Dark stuff."
Oct 22, 2024
Opinion polls have repeatedly made clear that U.S. voters are turned off by the Republican Party's fixation on banning abortion care and controlling Americans' reproductive choices—but that didn't stop three GOP officials from writing in a court filing this month that they want to restrict abortion pill access because it would reduce teen pregnancy rates in their state.
"In my expert legal opinion, this is deeply gross and weird," wrote attorney and writer Madiba K. Dennie on Monday at Balls & Strikes, a news outlet focused on the judiciary.
Dennie was referring to a legal filing by Republican Attorneys General Andrew Bailey of Missouri, Kris Kobach of Kansas, and Raúl Labrador of Idaho in a case regarding mifepristone, one of two pills commonly used in medication abortions—which account for more than half of abortions in the United States.
As S.P. Rogers wrote at the newsletter Repro-Truth, attorneys general filed an amended complaint earlier this month in an effort to revive Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a case in which the plaintiffs argued in favor of severely restricting mifepristone access nationwide.
The three states had joined the case earlier this year, before the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the case based on the plaintiffs' lack of standing.
Because the high court didn't outright dismiss the case, the three attorneys general were able to file a complaint on October 11 seeking to prohibit mifepristone use for anyone under the age of 18 and overturn eased restrictions for the drug.
Bailey, Kobach, and Labrador argued that mifepristone access would could cause "injuries" to their states because it is "depressing expected birth rates for teenaged mothers."
"A loss of potential population causes further injuries as well: The [states'] subsequent 'diminishment of political representation' and 'loss of federal funds,' such as potentially 'losing a seat in Congress or qualifying for less federal funding if their populations are' reduced or their increase diminished," reads the court filing.
In other words, wrote Rogers, in the view of the Republican state officials, "teenage girls, which the states refer to as 'teenaged mothers,' exist for the purposes of churning out new citizens for the states."
"Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri are claiming to have a legitimate, sovereign state interest in forced birth—in teenage girls and women as breeders. It's an argument that positions everyone capable of birthing as brood mares—a scenario in which the state does not exist for the people, but the people for the state—and augurs a future claim for the prohibition of contraception," added Rogers.
Republicans including GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump have signaled their desire to roll back the right to contraception.
At Balls & Strikes, Dennie wrote that the GOP officials made clear that they believe "uteri are state slush funds, and girls owe the state reproduction once they are capable of it."
"A personal dislike of somebody else taking medicine is not a legitimate grievance," wrote Dennie. "So the states are trying to show that they are entitled to the population growth and accompanying funds that pregnant minors would produce, and the FDA is getting in the way of that."
While the argument is "shocking in its brazenness," added Dennie, it shouldn't come as a surprise in a country where the Republican Party has shown no sign of backing down from its goal of banning abortion, even as news reports mount about children who have been forced to give birth and pregnant patients who have died or become gravely ill because healthcare providers have refused to treat them for fear of prosecution.
The legal complaint, said Dennie, "is a natural outgrowth of the conservative legal movement's efforts to subordinate women."
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