Target: Dan Hawkins, Speaker of Kansas House of Representatives
Goal: Do not order transgender citizens to change their identification documents.
Kansas lawmakers have made their priorities clear. Their newly passed law does not address the cost-of- living crisis. Nor does it offer any fixes for the host of issues residents identify as important, from healthcare to education. Instead, lawmakers busied themselves launching yet another attack on non-gender-conforming citizens.
Kansas law now states that driver’s licenses and birth certificates for nearly 2,000 residents must be immediately surrendered. If the gender designated on the documents does not align with the gender the resident was assigned at birth, the documents must be changed. Less than 24 hours after the law went into effect, thousands of citizens were forced to drive with their now-illegal licenses to the Department of Motor Vehicles and make the changes, or else face legal repercussions. For the residents who saw themselves truly recognized for the first time on official government documents, the trip was demeaning, devastating, and an explicit acknowledgment that the erosion of their rights and their identities would not end anytime soon.
Sign the petition below to demand elected leaders stop harassing already-marginalized Americans and begin focusing on the issues that matter most to their constituents.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Representative Hawkins,
Throwing red meat into the latest culture war may play well in a primary, but it will not earn you the respect or the vote of the constituents you need most to retain power. Are you prepared to stand at a podium or at a town hall and declare transgender and non-binary community members the most pressing threats to democracy or to an affordable and stable life? Changing the marker on someone’s driver’s license will do nothing to address the very real problems citizens of Kansas are facing. It will, however, sow more division and hurt thousands of people who have done nothing but try to live their lives in peace.
Remember how the state’s abortion referendum turned out and proceed down this road at your own political peril. Or reverse course, repeal the hateful laws targeting transgender and non-binary Americans, and extend a hand of healing, not hatred.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo Credit: Katie Rainbow
