Kansas wants to make it as difficult as possible for trans people to legally change their gender
Kansas hopes to stop transgender people from being able to legally update their gender on a birth certificate.
The already unpopular updates to Kansas regulations see health department officials come out against existing regulations which allow people to update their birth certificates.
The new rules, which could be implemented within six weeks, would mean a birth certificate could only be updated if someone’s parents could prove that it was incorrectly recorded at birth.
Health department officials in Kansas have been seeking to change the rules for some months.
Trans rights activists have already come out against the regulations, which could make it impossible for transgender people to legally change their gender after they transition.
According to the Associated Press, The National Center for Transgender Equality said that only Idaho and Tennessee currently have regulations against legally changing the gender on a birth certificate.
Ohio also currently is not allowing the change, despite not having a legal policy against it.
Apparently totally misunderstanding what it means to be transgender, Republican Shawnee County Senator Mary Pilcher-Cook said that a birth certificate is “a record for future generations”.
Pilcher-Cook, who previously supported a measure to fine trans people $2,500 for using a gender-appropriate bathroom, said a birth certificate should reflect the “science” of a person’s birth sex, not “political purposes”.
She previously claimed that transgender people make other students feel “uncomfortable”.
“Men and women are biologically different,” she said of the new regulations “I don’t think we should become detached from reality.”
The change is being pushed forward by Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, while North Carolina contends with massive controversy around its anti-LGBT HB2.
HB2 bans trans people from using a bathroom corresponding to a gender other than that displayed on their birth certificate. It also walked-back local laws protecting LGBT people.
The proposed regulations, condemned as “bigotry” are apparently in response to a legal battle in 2002 over the legality of a trans woman’s marriage to a man following his death.
Kansas already faces warnings that its new regulations will be challenged in the courts, as it will be unconstitutional.
