Transgender Kansans won’t let their mismatched IDs stop them from voting in the midterms

This story was originally reported by Orion Rummler of The 19th. Meet Orion and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.Avery Rowland, a transgender woman in small-town Kansas, is running as a Democrat to represent a state legislative district in the bottom-right corner of the state, about two hours south of Kansas City. She wants to bring more highways, hospitals and schools to her rural, deep-red district.Her race was fairly uneventful until she got wind of a Kansas Republican Party official questioning her eligibility to vote.Kansas Reflector, a local news outlet, came to her with records showing that the state GOP treasurer, Roger Lomshek, had called the secretary of state’s office and asked why a new law invalidating transgender Kansans’ licenses wasn’t being applied to voter registration. Specifically, he wanted to know why that law didn’t apply to Rowland and her ability to vote.“I was a little bit pissed off,” she told The 19th. “That’s kind of a chicken move to do. Just be a man, but, whatever.” Lomshek was asking about SB 244, which invalidated thousands of Kansans’ drivers licenses based on gender identity and required immediate replacement. In response to Lomshek’s inquiry, state officials found that election officers are not responsible for enforcing SB244 when it comes to voting or running for office. “Gender discrepancies can never be a basis for denying anyone the right to vote,” a spokeswoman for the Kansas secretary of state office said in a statement to Reflector. Lomshek did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The Kansas Republican Party also did not respond. In February, Rowland and thousands of other trans people across the state received letters stating they had only days before their driver’s licenses would be invalidated. The state was forcing them to get IDs labeled with their sex at birth, not their current gender. They would face penalties for driving with their old license. There