Trans people in Kansas are being ordered to surrender their drivers licenses
8d 10h ago by lemmy.world/u/andros_rex in aboringdystopia
"We apologize for the inconvenience this causes you."
Yes I'm sure you fucking do.
If they try this shit in my state, I’d fucking sue.
I had surgery BECAUSE it would let me change my drivers license. I paid $5500 as a broke college student because I was getting turned down for jobs with that stupid “F.”
I don’t understand how any of this is legal. The constitution prohibits “ex post facto” laws - how can you revoke someone’s documentation when they complied with the laws as they were at the time?
I don't understand how any of this is legal
That's the thing - It's not. They don't give a shit, and the judicial system isn't doing anything about it
And even if they did, it would take months, if not years, to resolve. Until then people will either be disenfranchised and can't vote or forced to update their ID's, which could also take months of paperwork to resolve.
In which case they sue, and the case gets run up to the ultra Maga supreme court who will of course be fair and impartial in their review before returning a verdict that favors conservatives.
I'm currently outside the US but I'm pulling my hair out trying to renew my passport. I don't even care what's on it. The Nazi bastards don't give a fuck, the cruelty is the point
I've been trying to revive my childhood passport from my birth country since I fully expect passports to be next
how any of this is legal. The constitution
The problem is that you respect and believe in words. The people currently in charge could give two fucks. Ultimately, words only have the power that we give them, so when those in charge ignore the Constitution, then the Contitution has no power.
I have severe ADHD. It's funny in a way because when I was younger, I tried to understand the rules of my employers and follow them. And yet I still lost jobs. In part because of issues related to ADHD specifically, but in part because what companies SAY the rules are is not what the rules are. If you've worked in a corporate environment, you know that there's go-to people for things. And while there's official processes (or maybe even not), what ACTUALLY happens is that someone goes to the person who can do something and asks them to do it, and generally they do, and that's like 75% of how business actually runs.
In the same way, there are rules and decorum and traditions in politics and revolve around the Constution and various bodies of legislature, et cetera. And so there's nothing that ACTUALLY forces anyone to follow any of that except voluntary compliance or physical threat because policing bodies enforce things.
This is why the rich are free, largely, from most crimes. They aren't enforced. And this is how our democracy crumbled. The Constitution hasn't been repealed. It doesn't have to be. It is simply ignored. Worse, those who claim to follow it shit on it and ignore it and throw it out.
or physical threat because policing bodies enforce things.
And unfortunately those kinds of organisations are full of people who tend to lean very heavily towards authoritarianism, so once the winds shift enough you'll suddenly find that the people who are supposed to be enforcing the law, well, don't.
As we have seen in recent months. heh :/
Yeah the US is pretty much a case study.
Europe isn't immune either, by any means. The monopoly on violence will, unsurprisingly, be full of violent authoritarians, and the same will happen anywhere that authoritarians feel like they now have the upper hand
Europe isn’t immune either, by any means.
Feel rare to hear that expressed, but one of the side effects of our fall into fascism is that, like you say - we make for a good case study, and if it woke Europeans up a bit and that fall doesn't happen over there, so much the better.
It definitely is a reminder that we cannot take democracy for granted. It is a constant struggle. And letting the oligarchs "play" with their Fox News lies and right-wing radio… that experiment shows that fascism and authoritarianism must be stamped out and not allowed to thrive as an "equal voice".
We already have Slovakia, Hungary and Italy here, with Italy being ruled by literal neofascists – FdI is a direct descendant of Mussolini's original Fascist Party. Finland is on its way to joining them, in Germany AfD is gaining popularity, RN is very popular in France and so on
The constitution prohibits “ex post facto” laws - how can you revoke someone’s documentation when they complied with the laws as they were at the time?
I agree with you generally that this should be illegal, but it probably isn't.
It definitely isn't ex post facto; this is not a law that punishes anyone from a legal perspective, it merely changes the requirements for a certain privilege (the ability to drive a vehicle). If it declared these licenses invalid before the date of the law (which could carry punishments for illegally operating vehicles), then it would be ex post facto.
Another way to put it is that it simply makes a certain action illegal which was previously legal, and laws do that sort of thing all the time. Consider that in the US you didn't need a driver's license in order to drive at all until 1913. The NJ law requiring drivers licenses also "revoked" someone's privilege even though they complied with the laws previously, requiring them to get a permit from then on. But, since it didn't introduce any punishments for not having the permit before it was introduced, it wasn't ex post facto.
Of course the law is also clearly discriminatory, but US's extremely limited anti-discrimination laws are likely not broad enough to be applied here.
The current events should awaken many people to the sad fact that US laws and its entire legal system exists primarily to protect the wealthy and the powerful from everyone else; all other functions are secondary. As such, many horrible, immoral, and unjust things are legal under US laws, and many others will be twisted into being legal by the supreme court.
It's true that this isn't ex post facto, but in a sane interpretation of the law it would be discrimination against a protected class; a woman who was assigned female at birth grts preferential treatment under the law with respect to a woman who was not.
Unfortunately we live in an age of madness.
I don’t understand how any of this is legal
Part of it comes down to how driving is legally a privilege, but it's also been made a legal requirement in many instances (such as living on a highway that disallows pedestrians) and a functional requirement in many others (have to walk past 5 miles of parking lots and take a long meandering path to get around the interstate along noisy, busy stroads just to get to any grocery store by foot for the most common example)
Sometimes in some places there's half-assed policies in place to try to paper over the problem, such as free paratransit for disabled and elderly individuals that requires scheduling the ride days or weeks in advance, special driving permits for those who had their licenses revoked to be able to get to work, school and go shopping but restricts allowed driving hours and places to make it even more of a punishment, bus services that run only hourly on weekdays, stopping only at poorly marked stops located in built places no human would want to stand at for even a few minutes, etc
This letter reads to me like it is someone from the Kansas executive branch (run by Democrat Governor Laura Kelly) legitimately apologizing that they are bound by Republican made, veto-overridden law to cause this inconvenience, but maybe I'm being too generous
That could be the case, I suppose. If they really wanted to be assholes about it, they could just not send anything at all. This at least explains how the recipient is effected and what they can/need to do
That's how I read this, too. The government isn't a monolith that just agrees with every law they have to follow. They do have to follow the law until it is challenged, though. Hopefully courts in KS knock this down.
Not only that, but bare in mind that most government employees are there to do a job. They don't always agree with the laws they have to enforce and sometimes they will make it as challenging as possible for fascist ideas like this go through.
Complaining to them is like complaining to the checkout cashier at your grocery store that the prices are too high.
Nah, this is bipartisan cruelty. The Democratic governor maintained a list of trans people who changed their markers. How do you think they were able to send out these letters so fast? They already had a list of anyone that had changed their gender marker. That list was created on the order of a Democratic governor.
No. It is GOP cruelty. Nothing "bipartisan" about it. From a different article:
The new law takes effect on Thursday. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the measure, but the Legislature’s GOP supermajorities overrode it last week as Republican state lawmakers across the U.S. have pursued another round of measures to roll back transgender rights.
Kansas’ new law enjoyed nearly unanimous GOP support. It is the latest success in what has become an annual effort to further roll back transgender rights by Republicans in statehouses across the U.S., bolstered by policies and rhetoric from President Donald Trump’s administration.
Kelly supports transgender rights, but GOP lawmakers have overridden her vetoes three of the past four years. (emphases mine)
Nothing ambiguous about it. I would also draw your attention to the first line of the above letter itself:
House Substitute for Senate Bill 244, enacted by the Kansas Legislature overriding Governor Kelly's veto, requires Kansas-issued drivers' licenses and identification cards to reflect the credential holder's sex at birth and directs the Division of Vehicles to comply with K.S.A. 77-207.
Generally speaking, governors do not personally compile healthcare-related lists. Any such list would be assembled by and come through the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, and with the Kansas state GOP supermajority passing the legislation making such lists mandatory, there would not be much the very obviously trans-friendly governor could do.
I genuinely do not see how you can lay GOP group evil at the feet on the one person clearly trying to do what she can to stop it.
It's almost like you don't want the GOP to get full credit for what the GOP supermajority is doing in Kansas to trans people.
EDITED to correct myself and add source
It's almost like you're completely ignorant of this and are "umm aktually"ing an actual trans person who pays attention to this stuff!
No shit the law was passed by a Republican legislature. And yes, the law was vetoed by the governor. But maybe you're just one of those Blue MAGA types that assumes Dems can do no wrong. But a list of trans people in the state already existed. And that list wasn't created as a result of this law. It was created by policies of the Vital Records office, which the governor controls. In fact, Kansas, with its Democratic governor, had a pre-made list of trans people ready to go, which not even Texas and Florida had!
https://transitics.substack.com/p/kansas-secretly-spent-years-making
Whether by malice or ignorance matters little. Under the watch of a Democratic governor, the state went further than any other Republican state in having a records system that could instantly create a list of trans Kansas residents.
Yes, Republicans are the primary antagonists of trans folks. But Democrats are truthfully not much better. In fact, there are Democratic attorneys general in more than a dozen states that are currently ignoring their own state laws and refusing to enforce anti-discrimination laws. Many hospitals and clinics have been complying in advance with Trump's illegal executive orders targeting trans healthcare, stopping services for children and adults. Doing so is a direct violation of anti-discrimination laws that LGBT activists spent decades fighting to pass. But the laws mean nothing if the attorneys general aren't willing to actually enforce them.
A lot of Democrats have decided that sticking up for trans people is simply politically inconvenient. They won't actively try to pass persecutory laws, but they won't lift a finger to fight back against them either. The Kansas governor didn't want the optics of explicitly signing a piece of bigoted legislation, but she also didn't lift a finger to protect trans people. The very agencies she's in charge of designed their records system so that it would be easy to find trans people, and it never occurred to the Democratic governor to try and do something about this.
So yes, this is bipartisan cruelty. Don't be Blue MAGA and assume your side is innocent.
But maybe you’re just one of those Blue MAGA types that assumes Dems can do no wrong.
Far from it. After Kamala, and the Senate cave-in last year, and all they have NOT done, I'll never vote non-screamingly progressive Dem again. The Dems are not even remotely sin-free here. And thank you for the additional information; you're right, I did not know that.
But it's not as black and white as you paint it. As tired as you must personally be of not having the supposedly good people do enough, I am tired of seeing people who are actually trying to do the right thing in their given circumstances constantly shat upon for not doing it ALL, while the people most guilty of all these egregious errors get a complete pass, or just a passing nod, as if it is up to the genuinely well-intentioned among us to corral all evil and somehow not up to the evildoers themselves to cut it the fuck out. I don't know what kind of shit this governor has gotten for her pro-trans actions and vetos, but it's definitely non-zero in a red state like Kansas, and I would not be surprised if she's gotten death threats over her pro-trans stance.
Driving an infinitely fine line between good and perfect helps no one. The governor was at least working a veto, or trying to. Did she even know what her appointed secretary was doing? And it wasn't just the Kansas Office of Vital Statistics (OVS) starting trans tracking in 2019; according to the blog you linked, the Kansas Division of Vehicles has been tracking trans people since 2007.
Representatives for the Division of Vehicles confirmed that, since legalizing driver’s license updates in 2007, the DOV has also tracked trans people. Like the OVS, the DOV created an internal marker that is specific to the process Kansas called “gender reclassification.” Similar to the vital records system, this trans-specific flag gives the DOV the ability to quickly create a list of trans people—an ability it recently utilized to send the revocation letters.
So the list that sent the letters came from the Dept of Vehicles itself, and was started a dozen years prior to Kelly attaining office.
If someone's openly on my "side" I'm not going to shit on them for what they might not even personally be aware of, especially when death threats for being pro-trans have become the norm for public figures.
As for me, my own personal "side" is not MAGA or anti-MAGA, though these days it works out anti 100% of the time. My own personal "side" is 100% pro-people: living the way they want to live, loving the way they want to love, inhabiting the bodies they want to inhabit, and to support anyone who I think is at least trying to stand up for that, however imperfect and insufficient their efforts are at this moment in time.
And no. The current hostility toward anyone of a different identity is NOT bipartisan. It is primarily GOP. And while not all Dems are on board, that's where the majority of your supporters are, because they sure as fuck aren't on the GOP side, and as you have read, it is still the Kansas GOP supermajority that is rolling this shit out for Kansas like a monster truck without brakes. For all the hairs you've so carefully split, you still haven't convinced me otherwise. But again, thank you for the additional information: on that I do stand corrected, and I do appreciate you taking the time and trouble to correct me on it.
EDITED to add blog quote and to remove unnecessarily inflammatory language
They might as well have said "THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER"
We apologize for the inconvenience
Tshirtable
Instead of "identify as a fucking problem" it should say "identify as your fucking problem"
The cruelty is the point.
Oh, but they "apologize for the inconvenience".
The DMV might actually be sorry about it. The governor (who oversees the DMV) vetoed the bill, but the legislature overrode her veto. If it was up to the governor, this law would have never been in place.
Should have just refused to send the notices. Make them try to remove her from office. Make them file suit. Make them send State Troopers to physically haul her out from behind the governor's desk. If Kansas Republicans are going to try to take one more large step on the "genocide the people of whose existence we do not approve," then there's no level of resistance that isn't appropriate, if you want to hang on to your humanity.
The point is also to disempower you and render you unable to resist extermination.
Within the next three years, we will either see a second American revolution or the mass execution of trans people who have done nothing wrong (though they will naturally be classified as sex offenders and felons).
We're already engaged in the mass incarceration and extrajudicial murder of immigrants and dissenters. People seem reluctant to rebel.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/
They knew this would be a deeply unpopular bill, which is why they refused to open it up to public input...This sets a dangerous precedent for further discriminatory laws. All because the chucklefucks that run Kansas legislation in my home state are fucking bigots and wanted some brownie points from a dementia suffering pres and his vocal minority. Disgusting, I don't want my neighbors or Kansas citizens being fucked over like this, it pisses me off on a scale that has no number.
All because the chucklefucks that run Kansas legislation in my home state
I know you're just saying that Kansas is your home state, but I choose to read it as some conspiracy that you live in some other state, and chucklefucks there are secretly running the Kansas legislature. :D
ROFL It does kinda read like that, I'm not even mad.
This is total horse shit, but not even a grace period? That's extra evil.
Don't have a friend who can drive you to the DMV? Can't afford to pay for a ride? Don't live close to a bus stop? Please drive to the nearest DMV office where you will be arrested for operating a motor vehicle with a license that we invalidated just hours ago. Sorry for the inconvenience that we put a lot of effort into inflicting on you.
First they came for the transgendered, and I didn't speak up because they didn't allot a public comment period.
The "your driver license is invalid immediately" is super fucking infuriating, especially in a country where without a driving license means being unemployable
Fucking scum, a driving license has nothing to do with sex. It is meant to prove that the cardholder is able to drive a vehicle or not.
Luckily I live in a continent where the cardholder sex isn't mentioned at all in the driving license (eu directive of 2006)
Luckily I live in a continent where the cardholder sex isn’t mentioned at all in the driving license (eu directive of 2006)
Don't be so bold, the EU is turning right and has been for the last few years. Sweden's deporting kids to Iran without their families, for instance. That pisses me off more than trans adult muricans losing their driving licenses.
Well, I can't tell you how to feel, but doing genocide on trans people too.
its infuriating because it is a "silent" attempt to kill
It boils my fucking blood that my tax dollars are paying for this
The general strike in Minneapolis shows what the working class can achieve.
From the provinces (Australia), I suggest you join whatever local movements exist.
I'm wishing you great success, because I worry what will be in store for us if the US falls even further into racism.
Stay strong friend
Top 1% of the of 1%. With the highest passing. /s
This is a great propaganda* image. Yoink ⚒️
* word used in the neural sense
* word used in the neural sense
There's good propaganda and there's bad propaganda.
Good propaganda is your effective propaganda, or your opposition's ineffective propaganda. And vice versa.
This is good propaganda.
Your right to self identify doesn't exist under fascist rule. Identify as you're told, or face the consequences.
Today it's gender. I wonder what facet of identity they'll seek to control tomorrow. Sexual orientation? Religion? Political affiliation?
Race.
Oh, you can’t change that? Well, the penalty’s pretty stiff, unfortunately…
In for a penny in for a pound. Might as well push another fascist in the ground.
Sorry, you're practicing Islam which is a clear violation of our Christian citizens' constitutionally protected freedom from other religions. Oh hey, tell your Jewish neighbors not to go too far.
"Sorry, that job is for men. What are you, some filthy tr*nny?"
And notice how they gave NO GRACE PERIOD for them whatsoever to cause as much pain and suffering. You can't drive, you can't buy alcohol, tobacco, etc. This goes to show what happens when hateful racists run the entire government and need a minority group to attack and blame everything on.
Remember to vote people, this is why voting is so important.
They gave no grace period and invalidated licenses during elections.
Quit blaming the victims, this is what the result of voting looks like.
Holy fuck what a shit take.
You get that elections aren't unanimous, yes?
So you're positioning yourself against "voting" as a concept in this argument, if that isn't clear by the 23 downvotes
I'm positioning myself against "aristocratic selection mechanisms" which y'all insist on calling "voting".
So yeah, fuck "voting".
What the fuck do the genitals I had at birth have to do with my ability to drive a car?
Republicans are obsessed with genitals. Maybe if we all send them a picture they can get it out of their system and finally grow up.
Good idea, let's all try it. Think we should send a pic of our assholes too?
Why send them pictures of the US government?
What? You don't use your genitalia to shift gears?
I must have missed that lesson
I have three pedals! How else am I supposed to use them all at once?
Heel-toe shifting is for chumps.
If you read the text in front of you, you'd realize they do not think your gender affects your ability to drive. They just think the license is invalid due to the wrong gender being listed.
Why would it invalidate the licence? They were utterly fine with it up until now so what's changed?
They want to fuck with trans people because they hate them. The thing that changed is they feel confident enough to do it now and that no one will act against them.
If you had read the subtext you would have realized they are transphobic
Yes, obviously. It is worth pointing out the absurdity of every excuse they use to be transphobic.
something someshit uh trans sports
these fucks do not understand human rights and won't stop with their bullshit until they're voted out of office.
Unfortunately, Kansastan.
You're not going to vote your way out of fascism. Stories are already coming out of how they plan to "take control" of elections.
thanks I wasn't aware of the fascist country I fucking live in.
we apologize the inconvenience this causes you
Whenever you see this line, anywhere, you know that they're saying "fuck you and what are you going to do about it, eh?"
I mean, we're 5 steps away from eugenics, and we'we sowwy for the inconvenience!
The goal is literally to inspire acts of violence by trans people. You can only persecute a community so much before the more unstable elements in that community start lashing out violently against anyone they can blame. That's the goal here. They're actively trying to create trans mass shooters. You demonize and persecute a minority. When some return your violence, you use that to justify further persecution.
I'm not trans, but I'm considering it. As someone posted above, respect my trans homies, or I'll identify as a fucking problem.
I am patient and intelligent. And very. Very. Fucking. Angry.
I cannot be alone.
You're not alone. And there are people in less persecuted demographics who should, can, and are willing to go to bat for the trans community.
Please stay safe and keep exploring you.
Except none of those shooters have been trans. I looked into it, and I found a youtube channel which does deep-dives on mass killers. For example the Texas shooter, was a girl child on the cusp of functionality, they describe homosexual feelings in their journal, and express fantasies about crossdressing or an alternative identity, maybe some gender questioning, I wouldn't say they had the language to definitively say either way. Honestly sounded like a confused horny young person with nebulous gay feelings. Either way, that's not why they did mass murder. They were a mentally ill young person who started using Discord, and then got groomed by the police or the CIA into murdering a bunch of people in cold blood (I added this part, 'we' don't offically know who groomer her, this is just obviously what happened because the cops just hung back and let her kill everybody). As far as I know they weren't involved in the trans community.
I think it's likely sincere. Lots of space between apologies for "the inconvenience" and the more traditional "any inconvenience."
The bureaucrat who had to write up this letter letting people know their IDs were going to be insta-invalidated was not a party to passing the law, and probably doesn't like telling people things like this.
"We apologize for the inconvenience this causes you."
How nice.
"We apologize for the fact that you live under a state legislature that doesn't respect your humanity."
With a zero day grace period to get things changed, they don’t apologize for anything, not even in a veiled way.
ACLU in Kansas is representing two plaintiffs suing the state over this.
Im pretty sure every domino in that image is in the process of falling down, not just trans...
And will it be resolved by elections? I think I know the answer
Sounds like voter suppression to me as they push the SAVE act.
Nah. This isn't that. It's bullshit, it's unnecessarily cruel, but "get a new ID with the M or F switched to the one you don't identify with" isn't all that relevant to SAVE when either way that ID alone wouldn't qualify as documentary proof of United States citizenship per SAVE. If you're already taking time out to go to the DMV though, you may as well get what you were already going to need to meet SAVE while you're out and dealing with government bureaucrats. See this as an excuse to get the other sorted too.
Seriously though, everyone needs to read SAVE and ensure you have what you need. Do it now, don't wait until the election. Don't even wait until SAVE passes. Be prepared for what they want to pull before they succeed at pulling it, because after they're only going to make it harder.
Well, my hope of SAVE is that it's held up in courts. Elections are a state right managed by the state.
I would hope it would collapse under 24A if nothing else, but I don't trust our current SCOTUS that far. Best to be prepared for it than to hope it fails.
Isn't SAVE DOA in the senate?
Alright, that's 112 votes down, now for the rest!
Fuck Kansas
This is so fucked up on so many levels. Next step will be trying to erase trans people from being able to go outside or have a job. I’m surprised Kansas lawmakers just didn’t go ahead and make all trans people sew a pink triangle to everything they wear.
Next step will be trying to erase trans people from being able to go outside or have a job
Kansas, like most all of the USA is very car dependent so losing a drivers license could result in not being able to commute to a job
Next step is killing them.
As terrible as it is, then notice does say that you will be given a replacement license when you hand in the current one. So it's not like they won't be able to drive.
My girlfriend is trans. She doesn't look ANYTHING like a man. In a few months she won't even have a penis. But if she had to go through this and have her license say M on it, anyone reading it will be extremely confused.
Definitely, all I'm saying is that she will still have a license and still will be able to drive.
Except now her license would have an M on it, even thought she looks completely like a woman. Driving isn't the issue here. Anywhere that checks ID like bars, liquor stores, anywhere would now see her license, see an M, look at her, and think it's either fake, or outing her publicly as trans.
This is now a frightening reality for any trans person in Kentucky.
Oh, yeah that's a problem. I didn't even consider using driver licenses as an ID, I'm used to having a national ID and forgot people use their driver's license as an ID in the US.
I don't even have a driver's license because I never needed a car, public transport was great in all the cities in Europe where I lived.I'm probably very divorced from the US realities.
Because if she lived in Kansas, in a few months she won't have any external male parts whatsoever, and if she had to put an M on her license it wouldn't even make sense.
I was providing an example of just how utterly stupid this law is.
I'm sorry she's having to deal with this BS. I have a feeling the next step is to arrest her in a pullover for having an invalid license when the cop doesn't believe the M instead of the F and says it's fake. Or when she tries to go to a bar and gets told its fake.
She's (I say this with a massive amount of sigh) fortunately in Ohio, so doesn't have to deal with this. I'm still working on seeing if she can file for refugee status here in Canada and she can move here.
But what you are saying is 100% part of the point. Make trans people's licenses look like they're fake. A trans male who looks more dude than me, a cis man, with an F on his license might get more harassed about it, arrested, etc. The cruelty is the point. The right knows they can't just make being trans illegal. But they can sure work their way towards it slowly. And this is just another step towards it.
First they came for.
why do we even need sex or gender marked on driver's licences?
I guess so that the police can know whether to say "stop resisting ma'am" or "stop resisting sir" when they pull the driver from the vehicle and start beating them?
nah that can't be it they don't care about misgendering
You misunderstand; they need to know what gender you identify as specifically so they can misgender you.
Rapist cops.
Cruelty.
I'm not trans and keen to understand how this impacts a trans person.
My. Immediate thought was it's intentionally leaving out the part that says you'll be issued with a replacement so won't stop you from driving so no biggie right?
However, that's diminishing the cruelty of it - it's about the emotional trauma from a government forcing you to officially identify as something you've fought your whole life not to be.
More than that it's about forcing every trans person to be outed every time they show their id. If you're a trans person with passing privilege congrats now you have to think 'do I feel safe being openly trans here' every time you buy alcohol or nicotine.
Oh wow, that's a really good point that I'd missed. Thanks for helping me understand the full threat from this.
An even worst outcome is if they get arrested and get placed with the same population of sex that they were assigned at birth. In a system where SA is rampant, it would be torture.
This bill also apparently also rewards $1k to anyone who informs on a person who uses the wrong bathroom. On the third violation, that person gets fined up to $1k and 6 months prison, so the above scenario is entirely possible if not probable.
My. Immediate thought was it’s intentionally leaving out the part that says you’ll be issued with a replacement so won’t stop you from driving so no biggie right?
Nope, it says you'll be issued a new one once it is surrendered, but it also says that it would be invalid immediately, so would not be legal to drive with.
Fantastic point, I'd missed the nuance of this. That gap would be a significant concern without all of the more heinous implications of this action.
won’t stop you from driving so no biggie right?
Right?
...riiight?
I wonder how many billions the USA has been wasted on crap legislation just like this.
I would think it would be worse for the license holder AND whatever law agency to be listed as "M" when they look "F", and tie up a lot of resources over nothing but another power trip.
So now you must hire a "medical professional" to exam and of course they will be paid by the state.
Then they'll need to make a new law enforcement division with a clever acronym, like T.E.D.
Then scanners at bathrooms with attending physician on call
Minimum wage is seven dollars an hour. Union membership is now mostly government employees and down to 10%.
STOCK MARKET 50K THOUGH
I think the trans movement dug a deep hole for itself when it promoted transition surgery for minors.
We didn't. Noone is even advocating for that. That is 100% a right-wing straw-man.
That works both ways though, when an “F” on the license is for someone who is 6’3" with quarterback shoulders and five-o’clock shadow.
Exactly, and now there's gonna be a ton of beardy, muscly men who are forced to revert to an "F" on their licenses.
I think the trans movement dug a deep hole for itself when it promoted transition surgery for minors.We didn’t. Noone is even advocating for that. That is 100% a right-wing straw-man.
I guess puberty-blockers are less invasive...
Puberty blockers were not advocated for by the community either.
Trans people in the 80s and 90s would recommend runaways who joined their community to take sex hormones. They did not recommend surgery or puberty blockers to children or teens, ever.
The modern trans community has been medicalized. The medical community recommends puberty blockers to minors, which the trans street community does not recommend. No one recommends surgery to minors, although it is sometimes allowed with teenagers over 16 in some rare cases, it is not "recommended."
Glad to hear it.
The medical community recommends
Money talks?
No.
Puberty blockers are a compromise.
Ideally, according to the trans community, teenage trans people should be allowed to take cross sex hormones alongside their own natural puberty. I'm not saying this is my own personal opinion, I don't know enough about it, but as someone who once lived in an area highly populated by trans people, this is what a lot of drag queens and trans people who live in this parallell culture seem to believe.
I can see why they say this, even though I haven't researched it enough to form my own opinion. As far as I know, puberty blockers exist to stall puberty so that the child can have time to change their mind if they want, because hormones have a more perminant effect either way.
"Wait and see if they change their mind" is something that you'd say if you didn't actually believe what someone was saying about themselves. Taking cross sex hormones should inhibit a lot of secondary sex characteristics from the other puberty anyway so I'm not sure why puberty blockers are needed unless the adults just don't believe them.
And you don't see the glaring contradictions in your beliefs? You complain about non-passing trans people with one breath. With the next, you condemn minors receiving gender-affirming healthcare! The entire reason there's a desire to not wait until kids are 18 is to avoid years of the wrong sex puberty that can make it very hard for trans people to assimilate into their gender as an adult!
Critical thinking is dead.
Just say your biology education ended at middle school. It's okay.
Why would America allow an openly transphobic government into power like this?
Oh right...
This is Kansas, one of the hard red states. It’s moving to purple, but as of now, it’s fairly red.
"Purple America" is a concept that's been around a bit, has a wiki article. Long and short of it is that we really are two nations in one country, and surprisingly mixed.
The "standard" way of representing red/blue states is highly misleading. It's mixed. Everywhere. Even rural.
I lived in the panhandle of Florida, a pretty "red" area. It was still ⅓ blue and only ⅔ red in Panama City. Out in the country, it gets worse of course, but the point is that land doesn't vote, so you have to remember to count that area for less.
There are very-red and very-blue areas, but it's really more of a mix than is portrayed.
…which unfortunately makes it even harder to sort out the two nations should we decide to cease sharing this country.
Yeah, although the governor is blue
Who was overridden by the majority red legislature. The governor can sometimes be from the minority party, but that doesn’t really matter when all they’re doing is either vetoing or begging the opposite party to do what they want.
Ultimately, the answer always goes back to capitalism by way of the pedophile billionaires that run the world.
So.. Cycling is the best trans inclusive transportation method?
yes, they did this for the benefit of trans people /s
Always was.
First they came for...
The education system. Once that was dismantled, they could just pressure the idiots not to question the propaganda.
Once the good people are all chased out, hopefully climate change will give them a run of tornados and just wipe the place clean so it can be resettled by humans.
Scum state with an even worse government.
You misspelled country.
In a way, yes, but this is Kansas being extra shitty, and deserving an extra mentioning.
Actually evil.
This exists for no reason other than to intentionally harm a small and already marginalized group.
It's a shame that fighting groups like the heritage foundation needed to take a couple decade backseat for insane cultural warring based entirely on misrepresenting each other and refusing to communicate.
And trying to point out that fact got you labeled as "enemy group" by everyone involved, and most people aren't involved enough to tell the difference between things like faux opposition within the establishment, and legitimate progressive groups with separate but legitimate grievances.
Get the peasants fighting the peasants, because if you pump enough noise into the environment, people just stop trying to comprehend outside of their bubble.
These monsters will destroy the world in order to apply their fickle bigotry.
Fuck the heritage foundation, bohemian grove, atlas network, and their myriad of other shapes used to obfuscate while affecting control. The rich have class solidarity, and they've done an amazing job getting everyone else to fight themselves.
Trans rights are human rights.
Is there any kind of charitable support fund to assist trans folk that want to get out of shit holes like Kansas? I guess it might be subject to abuse by the large number of cis folks that want to get out of Kansas too, but still.
TransContinentalPipeline
https://orccps.org/
Know of any resources for Pennsylvania? Not in KS but close.
Not even wanting money really, just how the fuck do I figure out how to move halfway across the country? OK isn’t revoking licenses, but in ‘28 when I renew it’ll probably say “F,” which ain’t conducive to my employment.
What's there to figure out? You need a job and a place to live. You either find a job and then move, or move and then find a job. (Assuming you're not a retired, on disability, etc.) The organization I linked helps people get to the PNW, connecting them with people willing to offer spare rooms and such to folks as they get established.
The easiest thing to do is to move now, before your license gets revoked. But even if a false gender marker is imposed on you, you can always move states and then get it changed back immediately upon entering the new state.
You either find a job and then move, or move and then find a job
Okay, but jobs don’t want to hire you if you don’t live there, and apartments want proof of income. That feels like a catch-22.
Also, just not sure about how much to save up. I’m guessing I’ll need at least $1000 for the Uhaul, but otherwise I’m just trying to save as much as I can. (Working four jobs atm)
There’s also a bunch of auxiliary paperwork things - getting a new drivers license, transferring car title? I don’t know. I’ve been jumping through hoops to get my certifications and work licenses transferred.
It’s overwhelming and I struggle with paperwork and planning these kinds of things at the best of times. I’ve reached out to those types of trans help orgs a few times to see if someone could just sit with me and walk through the finances. Give me a checklist.
PA allows for gender changes and X markers with just a form and paying for a new license card. However, it is a purple state which means that may change if the legislature and governor flip red.
Sounds totally awesome thank you. They are understandably new and not well vetted as a charity yet. Do you know anything about them / the people that run it? I will make a small donation now and if I can find out more about them, their efficiency, alternatives, and perhaps some reliable anecdotes, will make a larger donation when I am fiscally able to (maybe after taxes if I'm lucky....)
choose your fighter
Better keep picking on less than 1% of the population instead of trying to solve the problems effecting everyone.
They're intentionally focusing on the wrong 1%. Going after trans people is meant to serve as a distraction.
I would say they have us focusing on the wrong 1%. We should unite and go after the real problem.
This also costs money and can threaten their ability to vote.
How?
They just effectively expired all trans Kansan drivers licenses. If they want to drive or use their drivers licenses as an ID they need to pay about $30 to get a new one.
Edit: Of course, this benefits no one. It is a blatant attempt to harass and discriminate against a vulnerable minority population.
Kansas requires voters to present a state-issued form of ID to be able to vote, which is almost always going to be a driver's license or a state ID, both of which are affected by this change. If the license/ID is invalidated, no ability to vote.
Given that midterms are coming up, this could very well be a deliberate move to disenfranchise members of the trans community by denying their right to vote at a key political moment.
I assumed from the letter that by issuing a new licence they mean they give you a new one for free but according to news articles they will not.
The SAVE Act will make it harder to vote if your documentation doesn’t match your birth certificate. (article is from last year, but the bill just now passed the House I believe.)
It costs money to get a drivers license replaced.
Why stop at sex at birth. Add height at birth, weight at birth, baby photo etc.
This makes me feel bad for Trans people even more.
We've been targeted by Nazis since at least 1933, but we're always left out of history classes
Edit: this event is what gave us the banger quote "where they burn books, in the end they will burn humans too’"
that sucks
How long until they do this with passports?
They've tried doing this at the national level, so it's in the works.
Haven't they already? I saw a video of Hunter Schaffer saying she'd been issued an M passport in the first few days of Trump's 2nd term
That's already been done
"Those magic slippers will take you home in two seconds!"
"Yeah, naw, Imma stay here in Oz."
Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore...
Thank fuck.
Toto was even played by a bitch!
Wtf. This is fucking stupid
I would get upset, but you gotta consider those 8 chapters in the bible about transitioning is wrong and makes god angry /s
Everyone involved in this is guilty of treason
I don't know how true this is, or if it's just a funny story. Years ago even before gay marriage even became a topic in mainstream media. I heard that a trans fem went to go get her ID changed from M to F. They refused to change it all the typical response. She got mad and well if they see me as M then I'll dress like one. She took her top off and would walk around town topless. Cops would arrest her or try to write her tickets but she would go into Court and go my ID says M and men can walk around without a shirt, so what's the problem. I think they eventually let her change her ID to F.
Again I don't know if this is true just a funny story I heard a long time ago. Though it would be funny if it would happen today.
This'll be used as a tool to disenfranchise trans voters who didn't kneel.
Just appeal and force them to prove you're guilty of having the wrong gender on your id. It will be extremely difficult for them to do especially given the number of appeals that could happen almost at once.
Nice thought, but the law says "sex at birth", they probably know it from social security records or whatever. And your "incorrect" license isn't valid while waiting for appeals... and it's not like they'd prioritize it anyways. Messed up situation.
Doesn't matter they'd still have to prove it in court and that is going to eat huge parts of their budget and insane amounts of manpower diverted from actually running the state.
Except in the real world, you still lose your job after getting arrested and charged.
You'd have to be arrested for that first. Are you in the habit of being arrested on a day to say basis?
You don't think that Kansas cops will just profile anyone who looks even vaguely trans or GNC and demand to see ID?
I hope they do! That's where they'll get outrage. Striking outside marginalized communities is and always will be dangerous ground so arresting a dude that looks a bit too feminine or a woman who looks a tad too masculine is and I'm sorry to say this the exact thing you need to be hoping for.
Are you high right now?
Would it matter if I was or are you just being a bigot?
Your comments are complete gibberish. Yes, people get arrested for driving without a valid license. You have to show your license when you get pulled over. This really isn't that complicated buddy. They just voided the license of every trans person in the state. These people literally don't have valid drivers licenses. People could still use their old license, but it would be no different from anyone else driving on an expired license.
I'm not really understanding why you're having such difficulty understanding these very simple concepts. That's why I assumed you're high.
No they aren't.
I never said people don't get arrested for not having a valid license, I implied they need pretext to pull you over to find out your license isn't valid.
I'm not understanding why you chose to be rude but you do you buddy that said you sound like an awful person if you can't have a conversation without being a dick. Also, so that's a yes on just being a bigot, cool.
they’d still have to prove it in cour
Bold assumption.
I'd like for you to be right and I hope you are, but I don't think you are.
https://www.kslegislature.gov/li_2020/b2019_20/statute/008_000_0000_chapter/008_002_0000_article/008_002_0059_section/008_002_0059_k/
Such review shall be in accordance with the Kansas judicial review act. In the case of review of an order of suspension under K.S.A. 8-1001 et seq., and amendments thereto, or of an order of disqualification under subsection (a)(1)(D) of K.S.A. 8-2,142, and amendments thereto, the petition for review shall be filed within 14 days after the effective date of the order and venue of the action for review is the county where the administrative proceeding was held or the county where the person was arrested. In all other cases, the time for filing the petition is as provided by K.S.A. 77-613, and amendments thereto, and venue is the county where the licensee resides. The action for review shall be by trial de novo to the court. The court shall take testimony, examine the facts of the case and determine whether the petitioner is entitled to driving privileges or whether the petitioner's driving privileges are subject to suspension, cancellation or revocation under the provisions of this act.
It's a trial, they don't have a choice unless they change the way suspensions and disqualifications work and in the mean time there's probably going to be a group of lawyers working to get an injunction for overbredth and likely for speedy trial because of the volume of appeals.
Rule of law in the USA is almost dead.
You understand almost dead and dead are two totally different things correct? But no you're right, let's not try let's just roll over and not use the options available. I'm sure that'll end up well.
they don’t have a choice
Please forgive me for quoting myself from elsewhere:
The problem is that you respect and believe in words. The people currently in charge could give two fucks. Ultimately, words only have the power that we give them, so when those in charge ignore the Constitution, then the Contitution has no power.
[snip]
In the same way, there are rules and decorum and traditions in politics and revolve around the Constution and various bodies of legislature, et cetera. And so there’s nothing that ACTUALLY forces anyone to follow any of that except voluntary compliance or physical threat because policing bodies enforce things.
This is why the rich are free, largely, from most crimes. They aren’t enforced. And this is how our democracy crumbled. The Constitution hasn’t been repealed. It doesn’t have to be. It is simply ignored. Worse, those who claim to follow it shit on it and ignore it and throw it out.
So I'm afraid they do have a choice in the same way they have ignored due process and habeas corpus, as one tiny example.
Yeah nihilistic thought processes aren't helpful. The only legal means of resistance is through the law and we most do it and do far honestly they've respected the process when push comes to shove because fascism has to pretend laws matter even when the law is dumb.
Can you name a time in recent history they've ignored going to court? I can't. They've ignored the rulings at times but in this case you're aiming for a class action to judicially overrule the legislation so they can ignore it all they want but the licenses would still revert back to being legal.
But for the duration of the appeal you won't have a valid drivers license, as it says in the letter, credentials are invalidated immediately. This is the pressure game. You can appeal and walk everywhere with no valid ID, or you can drive and risk getting pulled over and arrested for having an invalid ID and put into the wrong gender prison.
Done properly, it could result in a judge issuing a stay on the order and preventing it from being enforced while the results are worked out in court. That's not uncommon.
Correct. Class action and emergency injunction.
Prison for no ID, what is this MAGA America? (Like when people say: What is this Nazi Germany?)
What a shame. The trans people of Kansas deserve far better than this disgusting violation.
How’d you make a fully blank comment? Even the raw info is blank.
God's honest, I do not know! I was sitting in a cafe and trying to peck out a reply and the network was throwing a wobbler. All I recall is at the time the page wasn't responding when I went to post. I did actually have something written in the comment!
Weird.
First they are born Trans, and that's already a pain in the ass, then they feel bad because of gender dysphoria and and then society decide to make that worse by telling bullshit to them and exclude them from being considered humans 😭
I guess they ????could dress in reverse drag???? to drive and vote?
Fuck you Kansas.
Fed isn’t revoking current passports. I’ve heard stories of renewals being returned to natal sex (and confiscated, but fewer incidents of that), but not “your current identification is invalid and you need to replace it ASAP.”
Do you realize how terrifying that would be? Get pulled over for a burned out tail light, your drivers license doesn’t count any more (realistically - how quickly could you clear out a day to visit the DMV?)
You can’t vote till you replace it? Kansas is probably following some ALEC/P26 playbook, and other states will follow. Closer to midterms likely.
I occasionally like to travel to rural areas. I used to spend a great deal of time volunteering in rural areas. Places where an incongruity between appearance and classification could be harmful. Minimum is being unable to grab a beer perhaps, but i don’t think it takes much imagination for other outcome. I guess that’s how it’s personally different.
Why do licenses need gender or sex at all?
Do you realize how terrifying that would be? Get pulled over for a burned out tail light, your drivers license doesn’t count any more (realistically - how quickly could you clear out a day to visit the DMV?)
Especially in the US, where a lot of things are car-centric. Sure, you could drive to the DMV, but your licence is invalid, so you'd be driving without a licence.
Time to bring out the pitchforks.
I just changed mine to NB in my state. $20 to upgrade to real id at the same time.
Fuck Kansas.
“The devil came from Kansas…” - Procol Harum, way back whenever
I hate profoundly dislike Christians.
I hate them
Calling that American fanfiction "Christianity" is a big stretch. If I were Christian I'd probably get mad lol
They're devil worshippers. Literally. If your religion leads you to hate, you're not worshipping God, you're worshipping the Devil. Evangelical Christians better there is no afterlife, because every single one of them is going to the Pit if there is.
Shit like this is why I no longer believe in the abolishment of death penalty.
It should be the opposite. This is the perfect example of why the death penalty should 100% be abolished. Right now they're going after driver licenses and bathroom usage, but the slippery slope is very slippery. It won't take much for them to make being trans an illegal offense punishable by death.
It won’t take much for them to make being trans an illegal offense punishable by death.
What they’ll do is make something like “the sexual abuse of children” punishable by death, but define being trans (probably verbiage would be “crossdressing”) within so many feet of a child as sexual abuse.
Then, when people try to argue against it, they can be like “oh, you want to protect pedophiles?”
They won't go that far because they now have a vested interest in protecting pedophiles. They'll just come out and say that being trans is illegal because it's against god or something and that it'll punishable by death. And guess what? They'll get it away with it too just like how they're getting away with this crap.
Okay, probably I can settle with absolute life in prison, if said prison is a solitary confinement without any access to their preferred religious materials and/or food.
State of Kansas, please surrender your statehood now!
Western democracy says you should tolerate fascists so they can crush you
Now I'm awake to the world. I was asleep before. That's how we let it happen. When they slaughtered Congress, we didn't wake up. When they blamed terrorists and suspended the constitution, we didn't wake up then, either. Nothing changes instantaneously. In a gradually heating bathtub, you'd be boiled to death before you knew it.
Margaret Atwood
Am I misunderstanding? They have to exchange their license for a new one (I assume with the actual gender).
edit : English is not my native language. Thanks for the feedback.
No, with the incorrect one.
actual gender
Trans people are born trans and are biologically the get they identify as.
Here are a number of studies that show the biological reality of transgender people. It’s important to note that although some of these studies suggest causation (ie, HOW a person is born transgender) we can’t know if there’s more than one cause, and therefore using any one test to see if somebody is “biologically trans” is impossible.
Sex vs Gender and the role of the SRY gene specifically (as opposed to the Y chromosome generally) in the development of each, as well as the possible role of AR (androgen receptor) gene https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6505576/
A correlation is found between AR allele repeat length and a person being transgender https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3402034/
The brains of trans people more closely resemble those of their chosen gender identity than their natal sex https://www.ese-hormones.org/media/1506/transgender-brains-are-more-like-their-desired-gender-from-an-early-age.pdf
A trans person's brain more closely resembles their chosen gender as demonstrated by their brain's response to olfactory stimulation with androstadienone https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2014.00060/full
Estrogen signaling pathways identified which tell the brain to develop as one gender or the other, as well as mechanisms by which physical development can happen in one way while brain development can happen in the other https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-53500-y
Cornell University summarizes 72 studies regarding the effect of gender transition on transgender well-being (with links to all 72 studies) https://whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equality/what-does-the-scholarly-research-say-about-the-well-being-of-transgender-people/
So no, you've got it backwards: they're being forced to turn in their id with their actual gender in exchange for one with the incorrect gender marker.
At least they apologized. ///////ssssssssss
If this is NOT another reason to study and read socialist theory, then I don't know what is. Seriously! https://redsails.org/
My only comment about this might be bannable for violence reasons, so I'm just gonna be quiet.
Let's say someone is leaving Kansas soon and couldn't care less about having a valid Kansas DL. Can they still demand it from them? Do you not own the ID itself
The point is that their license is effectively considered to be expired. Kansas is asking them to turn the old one in for a new one. Nothing's going to happen if they don't, but then they're just holding onto a worthless piece of plastic they can no longer use.
So it can't be used for voting anymore? What a ripoff.
Do you not own the ID itself
I don't know about the US but here in Germany you don't, all those official documents are property of the federal republic.
I used to run through kansas twice a week on us-54. Lmao not no more
So you can appeal this, but it does not have any effect on anything, so you in fact cannot appeal this.
You all should move to Russia for better quality of life.
Current Russia is also transphobic.
Russia is everything phobic
We need a system that's a lot more fairer and deals with the proletariat rather than the bourgeoisie. Luckily, there's that system - it's called socialism. Seriously!
Time to organize
Signed by a governor who legit looks like a transfem version of Elizabeth Warren.
Tsk tsk.
She vetoed this but the legislature managed to over ride her veto.
Also, tsk-tsk on you dragging her appearance into this. And in a way that as a transfem person, I personally find insensitive and gross.
I'm glad she tried to veto this. I apologize for the crass angle, but I'm pretty sure that if some Kansas yokel saw her coming out of a women's room (and didn't recognize her as the governor), they'd be harassing her and trying to get the payout.
That's the other side of this problem, is that not only transgender people will be impacted, but also cisgender women who have masculine features.
Its whole intent is to harass pretty much any woman, regardless of their birth sex, unless they meet the same Barbie image that every Republican seems to think is the only way a "real" woman should look.
The point I was trying to make (while under the belief that she supported it) was that cis women who look like her would also be impacted.
I appreciate your apology, and agree that these kinds of policies hurt women who don't measure up to patriarchal ideas of how a woman should look. Regardless of sex assigned at birth.
But she's a good one and has been vetoing things like this. Unfortunately, the Kansas GOP has enough votes that they can override her.
From an objective viewpoint I know these laws are being passed in the name of hate, but I wonder of there is a medical reason to have such information. However, it would be more appropriate on a carried medical emergency information card rather than ID as this information is often enough not helpful in proof of identity.
If I ever have to get an ID in Kansas, I'll make sure to flash my genitals as proof. And I won't shower for the week prior.
From an objective standpoint, the driving license should have no indication of gender at all.
Don't try to justify bigots.
This interpretation of my comment is far from accurate. But I should not expect less in this world of divisive ignorance.
The "white moderate"* position is not always worth considering. Trans people should not have to justify their existence, this has nothing to do with medicine.
* This is an MLK reference. If you do not know it, read more.
Try to understand that that would be a subjective position I did not address. My only non-objective statement was the prod at their idiocy in my second part mocking their hate. There is no justification for hate of any kind.
The "white moderate" position you're demonstrating is what MLK warned about: someone who agrees injustice is wrong, but insists on finding neutral framings for it. You're more devoted to appearing objective than to justice.
Trans people do not owe anyone a medicalised justification for their existence on a government document, period. The DMV are not medical staff. Your gender has nothing to do with passing a test to drive.
Searching for a "reasonable" angle on a law built on hate doesn't make you objective, it makes you an obstacle; and to paraphrase what MLK said: Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than outright hostility.
even worse, the neutral framing is just wrong, there isn't a medical reason to treat trans people as their assigned sex rather than their actual sex, and in fact there are medical reasons to view trans patients as their actual sex and not their assigned sex (as I get into in my comment above).
There might still be other neutral framings that can be used to undermine trans rights, I think the trans athletic bans are a good example (though, the more evidence we get on that, the more it is looking to be the case that trans women on average are like cis women in their physical fitness and ability, not like cis men).
💯💯💯
You completely mischaracterize my point.I'll try to be clearer. I never assume that a law or tradition is right, correct, fair, or just. I question everything. The presupposition that I would not change or challenge current, new, or past legislation is false. My position is far from neutral, it's just not based on opposing the percieved enemy as is so common these days. My position is intellectual and caring.
The position you continue to think I took would be not be intellectual. It presupposes that I believe in conserving the status quo. That is as far from correct as possible. I question everything. The position you continue to think I took would not be caring. It presupposes that I am not considering the harm to individuals. Also, far from correct.
I question everything, even solutions, because it often happens that by making a change based on one harm has potential to do harm to another. I want to thank dandelion for the amazing post that helps explore the harm than is done by the new law. With the understanding that hate is the only reason such a law would pass, we see that this is only doubling down on harm. That alone would convince me to push for removal of gender from all IDs because they are relics of fundamentalists in power.
I took a moment to reflect on the possible need for gender as a qualifier for many niche social programs. My conclusion is that it could be a separate form if necessary. Further, these programs are a sad reminder that we do not take care of each other on the grander scale of things which is what would make such qualifiers necssary. But that's a much bigger tangent to this conversation.
You've missed the point, again.
So is your point that you are angry and fed up? Me too. Credibility matters in the long run. Feelings are fleeting. Both have great value. Acting only on feelings will have divisive outcomes and result in more bad feelings. Acting only on intellect only will unintentionally not account for some factor and result in more bad feelings. Holding dogmatic to either method only perpetuates conflict. What point am I missing?
The point isn't my feelings, it's not your fucking feelings either. It's that you keep treating trans people's right to exist as an intellectual exercise requiring balance. It's isn't. Honestly, what on earth is wrong with you?
It's worth noting you thanked the person who educated you patiently and spent four replies defending yourself to the person who named what you were doing. That's a very white moderate response to being told you're doing white moderate things. Trans people should not need to justify themselves this way. Jesus Christ.
Nothing in my comment has anything to do woth someone's right to exist. My comments have been about how they are treated. Nothing in my comments has been about trans people needing to justify themselves. Your perception of this is way off from reality. That is because of feelings overwhelming your communication. I'm sorry you are so hurt. Please try to stop seeing the world as dichotomous. It is far from it.
Ah, and there it is. You have proven my point, yet again, better than I ever could.
"In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery?"
You just told me my anger is the problem and that my feelings are "overwhelming my communication." That I should stop seeing the world as dichotomous. In other words: the person naming the injustice is responsible for the discomfort caused by naming it. You tone police the objection so you never have to address the objection itself, and your response to being told you were handling it badly was to diagnose my emotional state.
https://letterfromjail.com/
You continue to add context that I did not give. Try going back and reading carefully to see how incorrect you are. That is why I say feelings cannot work alone. They fill in blanks with biases rather than asking why. For example, why do you believe I think anger is a problem? In all the context I have said feelings are important. The only feelings I have mentioned is hurt. How can you not be by the state of the world? I am. Also, your writing has tone that would appear as such. This is called empathy.
I deal with all kinds of people all the time. It is more common than not for bias to get in the way of communication. Feelings are a major player here. I'd like to recommmend reading some neuroscience. I am a fan of Jonathan Haidt. His books have helped me understand a lot of this. The Righteous Mind is a great start. Also, understanding how falacies work is very helpful.
King's letters from jail are great pieces of history but do not connect here. It doesn't feel like you have been reading what I have written and are even fabricating meaning. So again, I have no idea what your point is or if it has anything to do with mine?
You just recommended Jonathan Haidt, a man whose entire thesis is that we should empathise with the moral intuitions of people who oppose civil rights, as a corrective to my reading of MLK. I don't think you've understood either of them. He has been extensively criticised for false equivalence on exactly these kinds of questions.
https://behavioralscientist.org/whats-wrong-with-moral-foundations-theory-and-how-to-get-moral-psychology-right/
Moral psychology and civil rights protesters: Exemplary, different, and mad -> https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/spc3.12915 This one specifically talks about MLK and Haidt's pet theory.
Criticism is a good thing! That is where I am coming from. And no, it is not a correction to your reading. I did not see any connection from the letters to our conversation. I reference Haidt because he has helped me to begin understanding how so many people around me are thinking. As I said earlier, I care. I care about everyone and want the best for them. This does not mean I think they have good intentions or that they should not be corrected. It just gives a place to start. I did make a joke in my original comment that I see as similar to King's "One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." The law is obsurd, so should be the moral people.
You are claiming empathy while using a framework that pathologises the people you claim to care about.
Hi!
Trans person here.
The answer to your question is no, there is no medical reason for the sex marker on the driver's license. (Nor would it make sense to carry a medical card with your assigned sex marker on it.)
Assigned sex at birth is rarely relevant in medical contexts, and in fact is probably misleading (causing doctors to inappropriately treat the patient based on their assigned sex rather than their actual biological characteristics).
A trans woman is truly more like a cis woman than a cis man when it comes to medical needs, e.g. she will need mammograms like cis women, and (assuming here that trans women are on estrogen) they metabolize drugs like cis women and almost all of their biology is not different from a cis woman who lacks a uterus and ovaries.
A study from Oct 2025 found that within 12 months of taking HRT, trans people have a heart mass that matches their gender:
The troponin threshold to predict cardiovascular events is lower for women due to the greater cardiac mass typically seen in men.
Since estradiol and testosterone were not thought to directly impact cardiac mass, researchers expected that troponin would remain similar to individuals’ assigned gender at birth.
However, they found the opposite to be true.
The clinical research team found that troponin levels shifted towards the affirmed gender after 12 months of hormone therapy.
Troponin decreased in transgender women to a level not statistically different from cisgender women, but which was 78% lower than in cisgender men.
Another recent study published in Oct 2025 found that on the molecular level hormones change the protein biomarkers in cells:
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/study-finds-trans-womens-blood-proteins
“For transgender women, we found gender affirming hormone therapy alters the levels of many protein biomarkers,” Novakovic said, noting that this could impact risk assessments for things like autoimmune disease and heart conditions. Usually, these assessments factor in any number of variables, including sex as well as lifestyle or genetic components.
“Feminizing GAHT [gender-affirming hormone therapy] skews the plasma proteome toward a cis-female profile,” the study concluded. It should be noted that people of any sex or gender can exhibit a vast and evolving spectrum of these biomarkers—there is no “one size fits all” model for biodiversity.
The more evidence that is collected the more we realize that biological sex is not fixed but instead the human body is plastic and the sex really does change, so it's not really an exaggeration to say that trans women are biologically female in most medically relevant contexts.
The only exceptions I can think of are due to organs developing a certain way, e.g. trans men with a uterus still might technically have a rare chance of becoming pregnant or developing cervical cancers.
On the flip side, in rare cases, a trans woman (esp. one who transitions late and has a family history of prostate cancer) might develop a prostate cancer (fun fact: cis women have an organ similar to a prostate called the Skene's gland that, like the prostate, produces ejaculate; it's not a male-only organ), so that is one difference - trans women might need prostate exams that cis women wouldn't need.
But for almost all medical contexts, trans people should be treated as their gender and not their assigned sex at birth. For trans folks who have been on HRT for >6 - 12 months, it is genuinely a risk to their health to view them as their assigned sex at birth.
EDIT: for what it's worth, my doctor basically told me not to out myself to other doctors and this advice is not uncommonly given; he said the only thing I need to figure out in the future is possibly getting prostate exams when I'm much older - but even that is not clearly indicated given the treatment for prostate cancer is anti-androgens and estrogen, which I'll have been on for decades before the screening would start for prostate cancers; the needs vary, a woman who transitions later in life and has a family history of prostate cancer will have a different need for prostate cancer screening than a trans woman who transitioned before puberty and has no family history of prostate cancers, for example.
Thank you for an amazing response! Perspective and sources. You're awesome.
Yeah I'm capable of telling my doctor I'm trans, and if I feel like my country isn't safe enough that should be my decision, not my governments.