Fuming over transgender driver's license ruling, Kobach asks for special session

Matthew Kelly, The Kansas City Star on Oct 2, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, unwilling to accept defeat at the hands of the Kansas Supreme Court, is asking lawmakers to take extraordinary measures to help him prevent transgender Kansans from changing their gender on driver’s licenses and birth certificates.

The state’s highest court on Monday declined to consider Kobach’s appeal, paving the way for Kansans to adjust the listed gender on their official state records for the first time in more than two years.

Kobach has petitioned top Republican lawmakers to convene a special session with the goal of blocking the Kansas Department of Revenue from resuming its practice of accommodating gender marker change requests, according to a letter sent to GOP lawmakers and obtained by The Kansas City Star.

“Attorney General Kobach has urgently requested that the Legislature call a special session to address an issue that he considers even more important than redistricting,” reads the letter, signed by Senate President Ty Masterson, ar Republican. House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Republican, sent an identical letter to his caucus.

The GOP leaders recently began circulating a petition for lawmakers to convene in Topeka this fall for a special session designed to gerrymander U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids out of Congress — a proposal some Johnson County Republicans have expressed skepticism about.

“Because the Kansas Supreme Court has denied review, the radical decision of the Kansas Court of Appeals will stand, and the district court will be forced to lift its temporary injunction stopping the changing of driver’s licenses,” Masterson wrote, adding that Kobach believes lawmakers should “add a few words” to a 2023 law banning trans people from single-sex spaces to “prevent the courts from thwarting the will of the Legislature.”

In an email statement, Masterson, who is running for governor next year, suggested he’s open to rewording Senate Bill 180 during a special session if enough lawmakers sign on. Convening a special session without the governor’s assent requires the support of two-thirds of lawmakers in the House and Senate.

“AG Kobach’s letter raises serious and timely concerns that a special session needs to address,” Masterson said. “We can’t allow a narrow radical ideology the ability to alter basic concrete facts on documents with vital statistics. Should a special session be called, we can certainly handle both issues.”

Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, a Democrat, called the timing of Kobach’s urgent request for a change to a state law that went into effect over two years ago “highly suspicious.”

“It’s as though the idea of mid-decade redistricting isn’t generating enough momentum amongst the people of Kansas — because Kansans aren’t asking for a new map — so Republicans needed to return to a divisive social issue that they know will drum up outrage,” Sykes said in a statement.

Kobach’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

The letter to lawmakers outlining Kobach’s request for a special session states that the “lifting of the injunction will occur relatively soon, and it is almost certain that it will happen before the end of November.”

According to the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, which represented five trans Kansans in the lawsuit, the appeals court order reversing the lower court order will go into effect Oct. 6.

A spokesperson for the Department of Revenue said the agency plans to resume its practice of accommodating gender marker change requests now that the court’s decision has been finalized.

“As a result, the Department will resume processing gender marker changes on driver’s licenses in accordance with procedures that were in place prior to July 1, 2024,” KDOR spokesperson Zachary Denney said in an email statement.

KDOR has allowed for gender marker changes on driver’s licenses and state IDs since 2007.

Between 2011 and 2022, roughly 380 Kansas drivers had the designation on the front of their license changed, according to the Court of Appeals judge who authored the June ruling against Kobach. That accounts for 0.004% of the more than 9 million licenses issued by the state over 11 years.