Kansas
Kansas court upholds AG Kobach’s argument in transgender driver’s license case • Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — A district court has sided with Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach on a temporary block to keep Kansas residents from changing the gender listed on their drivers’ licenses.
Civil rights advocates warn the move will lead to “forced outing” of the state’s transgender residents.
On Monday, Shawnee County District Judge Teresa Watson issued a temporary injunction on gender marker changes for driver’s licenses. The move follows January court hearings on the implementation of a wide-ranging anti-trans law that passed last year.
“This decision is a victory for the rule of law and common sense,” Kobach said. “The Legislature wisely stated that state agencies should record biological sex at birth, and today the court held that the meaning of the law is clear.”
He first filed the lawsuit against the Kansas Department of Revenue’s Division of Vehicles in July, seeking to ban transgender people from changing gender markers on their driver’s licenses.
Kobach pointed to a provision in Senate Bill 180, which took effect in July, to make his case that driver’s licenses need to show sex assigned at birth. Under the law, genders are defined by reproductive organs, and state agencies that collect vital statistics are directed to identify individuals “as either male or female at birth.”
At the time, the district court issued a temporary restraining order blocking Kelly’s administration from making gender marker changes on identity cards and driver’s licenses. The court granted the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas permission to intervene in the lawsuit on behalf of five transgender Kansans who would be harmed by the gender marker ban.
During the two days of hearings in January, Kobach argued for the injunction against representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and Kansas Department of Revenue. Intervenors testified about their own experiences with transphobia, including forced outings when they had to show people their driver’s license.
Watson in her ruling said the transgender intervenors did not adequately show the damaging consequences of having mismatched gender markers.
“None testified to any actual threat to their personal safety; rather, some talked in general terms about hearing of harm that had come to unnamed others in unnamed places in unspecified situations,” Watson wrote. “The threat of injury to the State of Kansas outweighs any harm the temporary injunction may cause.”
D.C. Hiegert, LGBTQ+ legal fellow with the ACLU of Kansas, said the ACLU was disappointed in the ruling but would continue to examine other legal options.
“We will continue working toward a vision of our state that allows all of us to live in peace, free from government persecution and impositions on our core identities,” Hiegert said. “We remain unconvinced that the imaginary injury to the state could ever outweigh the enormous harm our clients and other transgender Kansans have and will continue to experience by being forced to carry inaccurate identification documents, in violation of their rights under the state constitution.”
In early 2026, the Kansas state legislature passed SB 244, a law which prohibits transgender people from using public restrooms on government property that align with their gender identity and establishes a private right of action that allows anyone who suspects someone is transgender and in violation of the law to sue that person for “damages” totaling $1,000.
The law also invalidates state-issued driver’s licenses with updated gender markers that reflect the carrier’s gender identity. In February 2026, transgender people across the state received letters from the state Department of Revenue’s Division of Vehicles informing them that their driver’s licenses “will no longer be valid,” effective immediately. SB 244 also prohibits transgender Kansans – or those born in Kansas – from updating the gender marker on state-issued birth certificates and driver’s licenses in the future.
The same day SB 244 went into effect, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Kansas, and Ballard Spahr LLP filed a lawsuit challenging SB 244 in the District Court of Douglas County on behalf of two transgender men who had their driver’s licenses invalidated under the law. The lawsuit charges that SB 244 violates the Kansas Constitution’s protections for personal autonomy, privacy, equality under the law, due process, and freedom of speech.
“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 Harper Seldin, Senior Staff Attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project. “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.”
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – A Kansas City man was sentenced in federal court for his role in a drug trafficking conspiracy and possession of an illegal firearm.
According to the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri, 22-year-old Antoine R. Gillum was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison without parole.
His sentencing stems from a June 2024 incident in a metro gas station. KCPD investigators contacted Gillum inside and found that he had discarded a 9 mm pistol in an aisle between the merchandise. He also discarded a pill bottle containing multiple illegal substances: cocaine base, oxycodone/acetaminophen and oxycodone.
Officers searched the vehicle Gillum had arrived in and found approximately 32 grams of cocaine base.
On May 6, 2025, Gillum pleaded guilty to one count each of possession with intent to distribute cocaine and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.
This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Jennings. It’s a part of ‘Operation Take Back America,’ a nationwide Department of Justice initiative to eliminate cartels and transnational criminal organizations.
No further information has been released.
Copyright 2026 KCTV. All rights reserved.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – A crash near a busy highway killed two people and injured two others.
Emergency crews responded to the crash at U.S. 71 Highway and Meyer Boulevard around 12:40 p.m. on Monday, March 2.
When crews arrived they determined four cars were involved in the crash.
Police are investigating how the crash happened.
Copyright 2026 KCTV. All rights reserved.
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