Kansas AG seeks to bar transgender people from updating birth certificates

The Kansas attorney general asked a federal judge on Friday to end a requirement that the state allow transgender people to update their birth certificates, following the passage of new legislation.

Attorney General Kris Kobach (R) requested that the judge modify a 2019 consent judgement, arguing that the recently enacted Senate Bill 180 requires state officials “to act in a way that would violate” the judgement.

“But now that the legislature has spoken, the agency is bound to execute the law as written,” Kobach said in Friday’s filing.

The consent judgement was part of a previous lawsuit brought by four transgender Kansas residents over a state policy that barred them from obtaining updated birth certificates to match their gender identity. 

However, under SB 180, state agencies and offices are required to identify people as “either male or female at birth” for the purpose of “complying with anti-discrimination laws” and gathering “accurate” data. 

The law, which was passed by the Republican-controlled legislature over Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto in April, is set to go into effect next week.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Kansas said on Friday that it “vehemently” condemns the request from the state’s attorney general on Friday. 

“What was true in 2019 remains true today: the state of Kansas cannot pick and choose which constitutionally protected rights it will recognize, and to deny any constitutional right to LGBTQ+ Kansans is unconstitutional and antithetical to our shared values,” Micah Kubic, the executive Director of the ACLU of Kansas, said in a statement.

Lambda Legal, who filed the original lawsuit against the state over the birth certificate policy, also said on Saturday that it would “vigorously oppose this gimmick” and would not allow Kobuch to “nullify a binding, years-old federal judgment.”