Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach on Thursday praised a state judge's order ruling the state can't allow transgender residents to choose gender identity on driver's licenses, citing the "public safety concern" created after nearly 200 transgender people in recent weeks changed the sex listed on their driver's licenses.
"We're very pleased that we prevailed in court thus far. The case continues," Kobach said Thursday during an appearance on Newsmax's "National Report."
Kobach, a Republican, sued last week to force Kansas to be among a few states that prohibits transgender people from changing their sex on their driver's licenses and to repudiate Democrat Gov. Laura Kelly.
"It's really astonishing," Kobach said. "You have a governor saying, 'I vetoed the law. I don't like the law, and even if they overrode my detail now, I'm not going to enforce the law.' It's a real threat to the rule of law when you have an executive agency saying they won't follow the law."
Kobach contends that a law that took effect last Saturday prevents such changes and requires the state to reverse any previous changes in its records.
The state agency that issues Kansas drivers' licenses failed Wednesday to persuade District Judge Teresa Watson that she made a mistake in imposing the ban two days earlier. Watson's latest order means that Kansas remains for now one of only a few U.S. states that won't change transgender people's licenses to reflect their gender identities.
The new Kansas law defines male and female based on the sex of a person at birth for "any" other law or state regulation — preventing legal recognition for transgender people's gender identities. The GOP-controlled Legislature enacted it over Kelly's veto.
The Kansas driver's license law says each application for a license must include a person's "gender," even though the listing on the license is "sex." Kansas Department of Revenue attorney Ted Smith said that language has been in place since 2007 and was clarified by a 2011 policy that Smith outlined in a memo to driver's license examiners.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
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Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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