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States including Kansas, Indiana, Texas, and Tennessee are looking to collect information about people who sought gender-affirming care or changed gender markers on documents
Kansas, Texas, Indiana, Tennessee, and other states are creating lists of trans people, moves that advocates say would make it nearly impossible to exist in a trans body.
In February, Kansas revoked the state identification cards and birth certificates of trans residents, making it the first state to cancel documents of individuals who changed their gender markers. The move was made possible as a result of the state’s comprehensive list of trans people. Since 2019, Kansas has kept an internal record of trans individuals who have changed their gender markers on birth certificates.
The state’s Republican-majority Legislature passed Kansas’ Senate Bill 244, overriding a veto from Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly. The legislation immediately voids every trans person’s corrected driver’s license and birth certificate, authorizes $1,000 lawsuits against trans people for using public restrooms, and creates additional fines and jail time for violations.
It’s not just that the right disagrees with the complexity of identity and gender; it’s that they really want to make it impossible for trans and nonbinary folks to live the full lives that we deserve.Raquel Willis, co-founder and strategic director of the Gender Liberation Movement
The bill in Kansas has been closely followed by other red states quietly moving forward with similar actions, dramatically and dangerously increasing the surveillance of trans and gender-expansive people, according to trans rights advocates.
“It’s not just that the right disagrees with the complexity of identity and gender; it’s that they really want to make it impossible for trans and nonbinary folks to live the full lives that we deserve,” said Raquel Willis, co-founder and strategic director of the Gender Liberation Movement.
The legislation turns everyday activities into legal liabilities, including buying alcohol, voting, and even driving. This is not the first time, and not nearly the last, that a state has tracked trans bodies with the intention of stripping communities of their right to exist, organizers said.
In Tennessee, lawmakers have advanced legislation that would create a list of trans residents, including making information about individuals seeking gender-affirming care public. In Texas, the state’s Department of Public Safety has been collecting data on trans Texans for the past two years, with the goal of reversing any changes made to gender markers. In Indiana, Attorney General Todd Rokita has paused the processing of gender amendment requests on birth certificates, giving him an updated list of trans and gender-expansive people in the state. These are not isolated instances; they are a pattern, according to advocates monitoring these state actions.
“The whole thing about surveillance is that it happens as long as people don’t notice,” said Aleksandra Vaca, an independent journalist who has been documenting the bills, laws, policies, and political developments impacting trans people across the country. “Only when Kansas started revoking people’s IDs did people start asking, ‘Wait a minute, how did they do this?’”
Vaca continues to contact state offices to push for more public information about the creation of these lists. Based on her research, she believes that more states are quietly creating such lists without making that process visible. Many are left wondering: Is this even legal?
“The idea of them creating a list of transgender people, while problematic and potentially scary for many, is not in and of itself illegal,” said Andrew Ortiz, senior policy attorney at the Transgender Law Center.
The legality of the lists present a nuanced legal pressure campaign against trans people, according to Ortiz.
“[Trans] folks have to immediately go and try and fix the situation so that they have legal documents so that they’re not being put in a position where they are breaking the law in ways they are unaware of,” said Ortiz.
As trans Kansans, and likely other trans communities across the country, grapple with the inability to legally exist in their home state, groups are organizing a response focused on evacuation. Operation Lifeboat, a project of Trans Liberty, aims to get trans people out of dangerous environments. SB 244 has made the entire state of Kansas unsafe for trans people, according to program staff.
David Dodds, chief of operations at Trans Liberty PAC, said Operation Lifeboat aims to help people who want to leave Kansas by connecting them with volunteers to help with the move and expenses. “The other most important part of that is not just washing our hands of them once they’re out of the state, but connecting them with the endpoint resources,” Dodds said.
Operation Lifeboat is supporting a great migration of trans people out of red states, according to Dodds, using Kansas as a test case for the program’s expected expansion.
“Kansas, I think unfortunately, was going to be the first domino that [fell],” Dodds said. “So what we’re doing with Kansas is we’re setting up the playbook of how we’re going to do this in the future.”
The effects of SB 244 and similar legislation will have an enormous impact on where trans people can safely exist and thrive, according to advocates.
“I fully think that you’re going to see mass migration out of these red states and towards these blue states in the long term,” said Jane Migliara Brigham, public information officer for Operation Lifeboat and an editor and reporter with transgender-led news site The Needle. “It’s reasonable to say that in five years, the majority of trans people who live in Kansas will not be living in Kansas anymore.”
Brigham believes that the motivations of elected officials pursuing this surveillance of trans bodies are clear.
“They want to kill us,” said Brigham. “They are plotting a genocide, and lists of people in the affected category are necessary to any historical genocide. If possible, you’re going to need infrastructure for that. You need surveillance for that. You need all these things that they are building out in these states because they want to kill us.”
As states continue to leverage their legal ability to track trans bodies, advocates warn that this is just the beginning.
“Often the attacks on the trans community get obscured or cast aside as minimal,” said Willis of Gender Liberation Movement. “But if they’re coming after our health care and they’re coming after our identifications and our access to public lives, they’re going to continue to come after other groups as well.”
Editorial Team:
Sahar Fatima, Lead Editor
Lara Witt, Top Editor
Stephanie Harris, Copy Editor
Nick Fulton is a Queer freelance journalist covering social justice movement building, LGBTQIA+ organizing, and progressive political commentary. In his full-time capacity, Nick works in political media for a criminal legal reform non-profit working to end mass incarceration and advocating for the dignity of incarcerated people. Previously, Nick has held positions at Color Of Change/Color Of Change PAC, The Global Women’s Institute, The Global Situation Room, and more. Nick is based in Washington, D.C. Follow Nick on X @ficknulton.
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