A Kansas law that strips transgender residents of their driver's licenses is a disaster for human rights and mobility justice — especially in the most car-dependent communities.
Last Thursday, the Sunflower State sent shockwaves through the nation when it informed residents who had changed the gender markers on their driver's licenses that those documents were now invalid.
That policy did not include any grace period, meaning that even if trans Kansans chose to deny their own identities to comply with it, they couldn't even legally drive themselves to the DMV to obtain a new document — which, in a state that spends less than $12 per capita on transit, means many had no legal way to comply at all, save hitching a ride.
The news touched off an immediate wave of outrage and lawsuits from impacted residents and allies alike, who argued that the goal of the legislation was "to single out and exclude, if not give a total license to discriminate against, transgender people in the state," as Logan Casey, director of policy research at the Movement Advancement Project told Time magazine.
Many rightly pointed out that because the driver's license is America's "de facto identification card," as Alissa Walker put it for Curbed, the policy threatened to cut off transgender people's ability to vote, cash checks, fly on airplanes, get many types of jobs that don't even require driving, purchase age-restricted products like cigarettes, and a universe of other basic privileges — at least if they choose to surrender their licenses rather than officially deny their gender identity. Those who do change their license markers but did not change their gender presentation, meanwhile, might risk outing themselves as trans every time they show their ID — potentially endangering themselves if the person who they handed that ID to happens to be a violent transphobe.
Even amidst all those disturbing implications, though, it's worth taking a moment to consider the implications of Kansas's law as simple transportation policy, too — as well as the transportation implications of other anti-trans bills currently sweeping America.
First, it bears repeating that in a car-dependent state like Kansas — which ranks in the upper third of per capita vehicle miles traveled — access to a drivers' license and a personal vehicle isn't just a privilege; it's often the only legal and reliable way to access food, jobs, medical care, time with loved ones, and everything else a human being relies upon to live and thrive.
That means, of course, that many people who are denied valid driver's licenses simply continue to drive without them — often to deadly results.
A NHTSA brief from April 2025, for instance, found that about one in five fatal crashes involves a driver without a valid license, while other studies have found that unlicensed motorists were more than 11 times more likely to cause an injury than a licensed one. That's a staggering amount, considering that the Center for Democracy and Engagement estimates that just under 9 percent of U.S. citizens of driving age lack a legal driving credential — though that estimate doesn't include many immigrants, a group which is particularly likely not to have that all-important piece of plastic in their wallets.
And not all of those motorists are scofflaws who lost their driving privileges because of bad roadway behavior, or who never bothered to pass a driving test in the first place.
The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that "one of the largest predictors of a driver’s decision to leave the scene is not having a valid license," which the organization says is in part because of fear of additional charges if they stayed on the scene, including driving without insurance, which unlicensed drivers often struggle to get. That's true whether they were denied a license because of their immigration status, for being too poor to afford court fees or child support, or one of the many other non-safety-related reasons that licenses can be rendered invalid.
Needless to say, hit-and-run victims are more likely to be killed because they're often denied medical attention until it's too late. And if Kansas's anti-trans law stands, transgender drivers without valid licenses will also have a disturbing new incentive to flee the scene of a crash at which they might have otherwise stayed.
Of course, driver's license revocations aren't the only way that Kansas is targeting its trans residents — and it's not alone. The same bill would restrict access to bathrooms based on a person's assigned sex at birth, mimicking similar laws in more than 20 states that have limited or even criminalized trans people's access to toilets, locker rooms, and other gender-restricted settings.
That isn't just cruel to trans people; it also compounds a major barrier to pedestrian access.
America already suffers from a dearth of clean, accessible public restrooms — particularly ones in transit stations, and those that don't require people to first patronize a private business in order to use them — forcing people on foot or bike to just hold it in if the nearest usable toilet is driving distance away, and incentivizing those who can to drive instead. For trans people who fear being discriminated against, arrested, or even brutalized no matter which gendered bathroom they use, the supply of safe restrooms is even smaller, leaving many only feeling comfortable in unisex or single-stall facilities.
Kansas's newest law isn't about enhancing transportation safety – and despite offensive rhetoric from transphobic politicians, it will have no positive impact on the safety of women, children, or anyone else, either.
As sustainable transportation advocates, though, it's incumbent upon us to recognize the way that legislation like this will endanger and limit the mobility of transgender people, as well as the ripple effects it will have for our transportation systems at large.
Every dollar spent policing these sorts of arbitrary transphobic laws is a dollar that can't be spent on systemic solutions that will actually make our cities safer, like infrastructure to slow down motorists and protect people outside cars, great transit that provides a real alternative to driving, and other community resources like unisex and single-stall public restrooms that people of all gender identities can safely use.
Every senselessly revoked driver's license means one more trans motorist who will struggle to get the car insurance that could properly compensate a victim if they struck them in the street — and might provide them a disturbing incentive to flee the scene of a crash and leave a victim to bleed out.
Trans people deserve basic rights and dignity for no other reason than the fact they are people, full stop. But granting them those rights and dignity will make our entire transportation network safer, too.
