Kansas ‒ The past weeks have seen escalating attacks on the trans community at the state and federal levels. On February 26th, SB 244 in Kansas invalidated all driver’s licenses with an updated gender marker. There was no grace period, so many transgender Kansans found themselves without a valid driver’s license overnight. It also requires that transgender people use the restroom corresponding to their assigned sex at birth in all government facilities. On February 19th, the Federal Bureau of Prisons released a new program for “Management of Inmates with Gender Dysphoria”. The document, obtained and released by Beth Schwartzapfel of the Marshall Project, details a plan in which all inmates currently on hormone replacement therapy will be detransitioned.
SB 244 is the most aggressive attempt so far to bar trans people from public life. According to the anonymously shared experience of one trans Kansan, they would be forced to pay to change the gender marker on their ID back, as well as the name and gender on their birth certificate, and then anything else that had their chosen name on it. Overnight, transgender residents of Kansas are now having to choose between a forced social detransition or leaving their home state.
The treatment of incarcerated people has always been cruel and inhumane, but the FBP’s new program takes it one step further. No HRT will be prescribed, and those already on it will be put on an approved “tapering plan”, including “rapid discontinuation” if they started HRT recently before incarceration. Suicide is a leading cause of death in prisons, and the rate more than doubled from 2023 to 2024 in some states. Additionally, more than 40% of transgender adults in the US have attempted suicide. While there is no current research into the relationship between incarcerated trans people and suicide attempts, it is clear that combining both risk factors, along with eliminating gender affirming care, will only result in more harm.
