New York law professor objects to Kansas anti-trans act | Opinion

What’s the difference between a 15-year-old and a transgender person? The 15-year-old can drive legally in Kansas.

It may sound like a joke, but it’s certainly one of the cruelest.

As of February 26, Kansas has invalidated the driver’s licenses of the approximately 1,700 transgender Kansans.

This law, one of hundreds around the country, senselessly targets the small minority of transgender people.

Lawmakers waste their time and taxpayers’ money on this pointless persecution. These laws make anyone who’s different an object of suspicion and undermine the lives of all people, regardless of their gender.

Fifteen-year-olds’ brains are still developing — they lack the judgment and empathy of an adult.

But Kansas trusts them behind the wheel, alone. Fourteen-year-olds can get a learner’s permit.

Not transgender folk. Kansas made no grace period for the implementation of this law, so even driving to the DMV to change their license is a crime.

In a state where getting around requires a car, this law not only criminalizes transgender people but also cuts off their legs.

How can they go to work? How can they take their children to school? How can they buy food?

As a law professor, I know how challenging it is to draft laws, much less edit, finalize and implement them.

Getting 1,700 competent drivers off the road does not serve the people of Kansas. All it does is make 1,700 individuals’ and their families’ lives much more difficult.

As Utah Gov. Spencer Cox noted in his veto of a ban on transgender athletes in sports, the number of transgender folks (in that case, student athletes) is so small, it seems much ado about nothing — a waste of time.

Equally important is the need for compassion. Cox stated, in vetoing that bill: “I must admit, I am not an expert on transgenderism. I struggle to understand so much of it and the science is conflicting. When in doubt however, I always try to err on the side of kindness, mercy and compassion.”

Utah’s legislature overrode the veto.

This law also undermines law enforcement by confusing matters more.

Transgender people mostly seem like the sex to which they transition. When one feels trapped by one’s body, it’s not easy to change.

Trans folk may look or act different, but their goal is to feel and live as the other sex.

In the new era, after the law passed, when a cop in Kansas pulls over someone with a broken taillight, they may find a driver who looks like a woman with an “M” on her license.

How does that help anyone? It does not.

With the “M” or “F” on driver’s licenses not matching who people are, Kansas’s law will confuse law enforcement as they use those licenses to identify people.

Even for people like Gov. Cox who struggle with the morality of changing one’s sex, it is more puzzling to treat people who mostly look like one sex as a different sex.

Even for citizens who disapprove of transgender people, this law is misguided, because our public resources could be used to improve everyone’s lives, not undermine those of a small few.

The law serves no economic benefit whatsoever during the current affordability crisis. All it does is demonize a small minority and their families.

The purpose of government is to make everyone’s lives better. Our elected officials work for the people. Kansas’s law makes life harder for transgender Kansans, but also for its government workers and all its citizens.

It’s a model of what government should not do: unconscionable cruelty for no public purpose.

Our elected officials should remember that what goes around comes around — wasting public resources for petty prejudices will only undermine their ability to do what really matters: improving everyone’s lives.

— Darren Rosenblum is a professor of law at St. John’s University in New York.