This one is a downer but also talks about the Trans Continental Pipeline and other acts of defiance. And hopefully it speaks to others too.
On Feb. 25, Siobhan Kirchstein received an official letter from the Kansas Division of Vehicles instructing her to surrender her driver’s license. She was one of hundreds of Kansans who received such letters when Senate Bill 244, a hastily passed piece of legislation, invalidated driver’s licenses on which the gender marker did not match the holder’s sex as assigned at birth.
“Additionally, please note that the Legislature did not include a grace period for updating credentials,” the letter said. “This means that once the law is officially enacted, your current credential will be invalid immediately.” The law was going into effect the next day."
She’d heard that Kansas might be placing transgender women in men’s prisons, and she feared violence, even rape. So, while some friends wondered aloud whether the state was really going to enforce the new law, Kirchstein decided to comply.
Some of the words or expressions in this article may at first blush seem hyperbolic. One of them is “fascism.” That’s how Kirschstein characterized the process when we met in Lawrence in July: “It was soft fascism.” It was. Fascism usually begins with redefining the nation by excluding certain groups, which are branded threats to national health and unity. The Trump administration has fixated on two groups most of all — immigrants and trans people — in just this way, smearing us (I am a member of both groups) as predatory, sick, at once subhuman and terrifyingly powerful.
Which brings me back to the word “fascism.” In 1938, Nazi Germany passed a law requiring Jews to add a specific middle name to their identity documents — Israel for men, Sara for women — so that they could be easily identifiable. “It would be laughable, if one couldn’t lose one’s reason over it,” the German Jewish linguist Victor Klemperer wrote in his diary at the time.
“I got the hint. I left.” I met Olivia Perdue at a roadside Panera Bread not far from her home in Missouri, where she had moved a week earlier. Perdue laid a half-dozen laminated ID cards on the greasy glossy table in front of us. “The V.A. thinks I’m female, the F.A.A. thinks I’m female, the Social Security Administration thinks I’m female, the state of Missouri thinks I’m male.”
It’s as if there are two Kansases — one of them a kind, loving Kansas where neighbors accept one another and churches offer sanctuary to immigrants and create summer camps for queer kids.
In Nazi Germany, the prerogative state was small: It encompassed some 600,000 Jews and even smaller numbers of Roma and Sinti, homosexuals, members of the Communist Party and the physically and mentally disabled. In the United States, Black people, Indigenous people and many immigrants, at a minimum, have long — have always — experienced state power as arbitrary and violent. That’s a much larger group. But even so, when the prerogative state expands, it shocks us: When a white U.S. citizen is shot by an immigration agent, or when a white person in Kansas wakes up to find out that they no longer have a valid ID — in a sense, to find that they are now undocumented in their own country.
Two days after I interviewed Kirchstein at Harbour Lights, the bar that hosts the queer pool tournament, and just over four months after she got the Letter about her driver’s license, she got another letter. “I am reaching out to you from human resources in response to a report received that I have an obligation to follow up on,” it said. “The report received was that you used a restroom in Parker Hall on the first floor in violation of Kansas Senate Bill 244 on June 22, 2026.”
This one is a downer but also talks about the Trans Continental Pipeline and other acts of defiance. And hopefully it speaks to others too.
Archive link (because NYT has moved to requiring a login even for gifted links) I know that archive has its own problems, but I genuinely looked for an alternate mirror and couldn’t find anything....
Archive link (because NYT has moved to requiring a login even for gifted links)
I know that archive has its own problems, but I genuinely looked for an alternate mirror and couldn’t find anything. Also I think this article is important enough that I want to remove as many barriers to reading it as possible.
I'm just imagining some people showing up to get their new license and being denied because they no longer look like the gender they were assigned at birth. What a mess.
I'm just imagining some people showing up to get their new license and being denied because they no longer look like the gender they were assigned at birth.
It occurred to me recently how much of a mess these sorts of laws make across borders. Someone in my field, in Europe, pointed out that she wasn't going to a conference being held in the US this...
It occurred to me recently how much of a mess these sorts of laws make across borders. Someone in my field, in Europe, pointed out that she wasn't going to a conference being held in the US this year because she is trans, and wasn't sure about travel. Would the US consider her passport valid for entry, given the restrictions now on US passports? Even if it officially said it would, would the border control agent actually consider it valid, if they somehow knew she was trans? If she really needed to go, would she need her country to give her some special second passport as I think sometimes has needed to be done in the past to enter petty oppressive countries for other reasons? And then considering her appearance, how would going through the border with a passport that had obviously wrong information (except in the US government view) on it actually work, beyond immediately outing her to the official as trans?
With the Kansas law, too, it would appear that bathroom use is based on Kansas' view of sex directly, while the identification part must be limited to identification issued by the state, so presumably identification from other states is still valid. That would appear to mean that someone with any combination of actual gender, gender as perceived by others, Kansas-judged sex, and sex or gender on their valid identification could commit the terrible crime of using the wrong bathroom. Or is Kansas also arguing that they can refuse to recognize some drivers' licenses from other states, in which case, is it actually not possible for some residents of more inclusive states to drive through Kansas legally?
That is basically what it comes down to, yes. That secondary "state" for trans folks. It also results in anyone not adhering to gendered expectations of appearance being harassed, assaulted and...
That is basically what it comes down to, yes. That secondary "state" for trans folks. It also results in anyone not adhering to gendered expectations of appearance being harassed, assaulted and arrested for being in (usually women's) bathrooms. Even if they're perfectly legally allowed there.
And as noted, being arrested as a trans woman means being placed in a men's jail unit (and men's prison) where the best case scenario is solitary confinement for safety and that's literally cruelty.
I apologize that this is somewhat distracting from more severely and directly affected groups. And there is the sense in which it feels a primary object of these laws is to compel trans people to...
I apologize that this is somewhat distracting from more severely and directly affected groups. And there is the sense in which it feels a primary object of these laws is to compel trans people to comply with legal expectations by breaking social expectations, that is, forcing them to choose between actually breaking laws, or creating the appearance to many observers of breaking laws. But on a more personal level, your point about gendered expectations of appearance reminded me of the perhaps secondary consequence, the broad cultural normativity enforced by these laws, and I wanted to thank you for that reminder. Despite my username and lack of particular preference about how people refer to me, I am cis, and think, at least within the cultures I am part of, that I am usually perceived as being my gender. I don't like gendered bathrooms, but I don't usually think I'm at risk using them.
But I also know that I don't quite fit gender norms in many cultures, and that strangers mistake my gender, if not often, on a not infrequent basis, especially when they only partially see me. I travel quite often as an academic. Do I need to worry about how people see me when I am in a gendered bathroom? When they just catch a glimpse of me? When, with a private right of action, they have a potential monetary prize to motivate them?
Your comment prompted me to check and it turns out I was just in a state where all this could have been a problem for me. Their law apparently does not apply to private buildings, and I only ever used my hotel room bathroom anyway, but it wasn't even something I had thought about mattering for me personally. I do have to wonder, now, if that was a quiet motivation of the conference organizers in unusually holding it at a hotel rather than a university campus.
And in some sense, it is a somewhat far-fetched worry for me, but isn't that somewhat the point? How much is enough to make it a risk? How far can you stray from the most narrow, repressive cultural views of the place? Is your hair too long or too short? Are you too muscular, or not muscular enough? Do you walk the wrong way? Are your clothes not sufficiently coded for one gender, in the particular area you're in? Are your clothes gendered, but gendered in what would be seen as too queer a way, in that particular region? Are you just driving through in a nice but small car with California plates? What departure from norms is too much? Isn't it safer to fit them exactly?
The broad cultural normativity is 100% part of the point of it all. They want to push everyone back into the small, close minded boxes they have for our gender, our presentation, our ethnicity,...
The broad cultural normativity is 100% part of the point of it all. They want to push everyone back into the small, close minded boxes they have for our gender, our presentation, our ethnicity, etc. Because they're white supremacists alongside being misogynists, transphobes, etc.
If standing out will get you harassed, most people will slowly stop standing out. Then you can chop down the stragglers with violence that makes the rest conform even more.
It never has to get to violence to be effective but the violence of police, of prison, of random vigilante violence can be enough.
Im in the rural south and theres an old mall a bit up the highway from my town where some actual woman born as a woman got the shit beat out of her for using the woman’s bathroom because she was...
Im in the rural south and theres an old mall a bit up the highway from my town where some actual woman born as a woman got the shit beat out of her for using the woman’s bathroom because she was wearing a hoodie with the hood up. It ended up in the news. No idea what happened to the assaulter, since where I live you need to go downtown and file an assault report and press charges or the cops wont do anything
I hadn't heard that one. I'd seen the Minnesota teen who ended up having to flash a server so they would believe that she was a girl. And several butch women who have been harassed for being masc....
I hadn't heard that one. I'd seen the Minnesota teen who ended up having to flash a server so they would believe that she was a girl.
And several butch women who have been harassed for being masc.
It's not worse because this is also happening to cis women, it should be a wakeup call to people who think that they're immune to harm from fascism.
I live in Kansas, near the KC area. One of my friends was almost affected by the drivers license law but he had just moved to the Missouri side and now has a MO license. However, the bathroom...
I live in Kansas, near the KC area. One of my friends was almost affected by the drivers license law but he had just moved to the Missouri side and now has a MO license. However, the bathroom issue still concerns him whenever we go to a public pool or anything else as a group activity here. He very much passes as male (he can grow a beard better than I can, and I'm a cis male), but he still has top surgery scars so he's worried about those giving him away.
A lot of us are just so tired of fighting and forcefully losing. We at least were able to vote against an abortion ban successfully a couple years back, but things like the driver's license change and bathroom laws just get pushed on us. I've had arguments with family about not forcing Christian values on non-believers, citing their fear of Obama making us a Muslim nation as an example of what's actually happening, but I guess too many people in power view this as the "right" thing to do.
This one is a downer but also talks about the Trans Continental Pipeline and other acts of defiance. And hopefully it speaks to others too.
Archive link (because NYT has moved to requiring a login even for gifted links)
I know that archive has its own problems, but I genuinely looked for an alternate mirror and couldn’t find anything. Also I think this article is important enough that I want to remove as many barriers to reading it as possible.
Absolutely, thanks!
I'm just imagining some people showing up to get their new license and being denied because they no longer look like the gender they were assigned at birth.
What a mess.
It occurred to me recently how much of a mess these sorts of laws make across borders. Someone in my field, in Europe, pointed out that she wasn't going to a conference being held in the US this year because she is trans, and wasn't sure about travel. Would the US consider her passport valid for entry, given the restrictions now on US passports? Even if it officially said it would, would the border control agent actually consider it valid, if they somehow knew she was trans? If she really needed to go, would she need her country to give her some special second passport as I think sometimes has needed to be done in the past to enter petty oppressive countries for other reasons? And then considering her appearance, how would going through the border with a passport that had obviously wrong information (except in the US government view) on it actually work, beyond immediately outing her to the official as trans?
With the Kansas law, too, it would appear that bathroom use is based on Kansas' view of sex directly, while the identification part must be limited to identification issued by the state, so presumably identification from other states is still valid. That would appear to mean that someone with any combination of actual gender, gender as perceived by others, Kansas-judged sex, and sex or gender on their valid identification could commit the terrible crime of using the wrong bathroom. Or is Kansas also arguing that they can refuse to recognize some drivers' licenses from other states, in which case, is it actually not possible for some residents of more inclusive states to drive through Kansas legally?
That is basically what it comes down to, yes. That secondary "state" for trans folks. It also results in anyone not adhering to gendered expectations of appearance being harassed, assaulted and arrested for being in (usually women's) bathrooms. Even if they're perfectly legally allowed there.
And as noted, being arrested as a trans woman means being placed in a men's jail unit (and men's prison) where the best case scenario is solitary confinement for safety and that's literally cruelty.
I apologize that this is somewhat distracting from more severely and directly affected groups. And there is the sense in which it feels a primary object of these laws is to compel trans people to comply with legal expectations by breaking social expectations, that is, forcing them to choose between actually breaking laws, or creating the appearance to many observers of breaking laws. But on a more personal level, your point about gendered expectations of appearance reminded me of the perhaps secondary consequence, the broad cultural normativity enforced by these laws, and I wanted to thank you for that reminder. Despite my username and lack of particular preference about how people refer to me, I am cis, and think, at least within the cultures I am part of, that I am usually perceived as being my gender. I don't like gendered bathrooms, but I don't usually think I'm at risk using them.
But I also know that I don't quite fit gender norms in many cultures, and that strangers mistake my gender, if not often, on a not infrequent basis, especially when they only partially see me. I travel quite often as an academic. Do I need to worry about how people see me when I am in a gendered bathroom? When they just catch a glimpse of me? When, with a private right of action, they have a potential monetary prize to motivate them?
Your comment prompted me to check and it turns out I was just in a state where all this could have been a problem for me. Their law apparently does not apply to private buildings, and I only ever used my hotel room bathroom anyway, but it wasn't even something I had thought about mattering for me personally. I do have to wonder, now, if that was a quiet motivation of the conference organizers in unusually holding it at a hotel rather than a university campus.
And in some sense, it is a somewhat far-fetched worry for me, but isn't that somewhat the point? How much is enough to make it a risk? How far can you stray from the most narrow, repressive cultural views of the place? Is your hair too long or too short? Are you too muscular, or not muscular enough? Do you walk the wrong way? Are your clothes not sufficiently coded for one gender, in the particular area you're in? Are your clothes gendered, but gendered in what would be seen as too queer a way, in that particular region? Are you just driving through in a nice but small car with California plates? What departure from norms is too much? Isn't it safer to fit them exactly?
The broad cultural normativity is 100% part of the point of it all. They want to push everyone back into the small, close minded boxes they have for our gender, our presentation, our ethnicity, etc. Because they're white supremacists alongside being misogynists, transphobes, etc.
If standing out will get you harassed, most people will slowly stop standing out. Then you can chop down the stragglers with violence that makes the rest conform even more.
It never has to get to violence to be effective but the violence of police, of prison, of random vigilante violence can be enough.
Im in the rural south and theres an old mall a bit up the highway from my town where some actual woman born as a woman got the shit beat out of her for using the woman’s bathroom because she was wearing a hoodie with the hood up. It ended up in the news. No idea what happened to the assaulter, since where I live you need to go downtown and file an assault report and press charges or the cops wont do anything
I hadn't heard that one. I'd seen the Minnesota teen who ended up having to flash a server so they would believe that she was a girl.
And several butch women who have been harassed for being masc.
It's not worse because this is also happening to cis women, it should be a wakeup call to people who think that they're immune to harm from fascism.
I live in Kansas, near the KC area. One of my friends was almost affected by the drivers license law but he had just moved to the Missouri side and now has a MO license. However, the bathroom issue still concerns him whenever we go to a public pool or anything else as a group activity here. He very much passes as male (he can grow a beard better than I can, and I'm a cis male), but he still has top surgery scars so he's worried about those giving him away.
A lot of us are just so tired of fighting and forcefully losing. We at least were able to vote against an abortion ban successfully a couple years back, but things like the driver's license change and bathroom laws just get pushed on us. I've had arguments with family about not forcing Christian values on non-believers, citing their fear of Obama making us a Muslim nation as an example of what's actually happening, but I guess too many people in power view this as the "right" thing to do.
Thanks for fighting the good fight and for protecting your friend where he can. I wish I had answers.
Could you please tag this as USA? It's only tagged as New York now. Thank you!