“It’s now illegal for trans people to drive in the state of Kansas.”
That’s the bizarre, objectively false claim made by “non-binary” influencer Matt Bernstein, who goes by MattIV online, in a video that has since received 13 million views.
He wasn’t alone. Across Instagram, TikTok, X, and other social media platforms, this doomsday rhetoric about a new Republican policy in Kansas has garnered viral attention. For example, the left-wing activist group Human Rights Campaign claimed on Facebook that Republicans in Kansas were trying to prevent trans people from voting, having a job, and even renting a car. Even Democratic members of Congress got in on the meltdown, with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) tweeting that the new policy puts trans people “in immediate danger.”
So, what actually happened?
Well, as the Kansas City Star reports, roughly 1,800 Kansans who identify as transgender and had driver’s licenses that listed their “preferred” sex rather than their biological sex received letters last week informing them that their licenses are invalidated under a new state law. The letters went out on Monday, and their licenses were invalidated last Thursday, leaving some in the lurch and needing to get a new, accurate license, because, as the letter explained, the law “did not include a grace period for updating credentials.”
There’s a legitimate complaint to be made against the state legislature. They can and should have included a 30-day grace period or a similar timeframe during which people could update their documents after the law took effect, before they were invalidated. It is obviously inconvenient and inconsiderate to leave someone in a situation where they have to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get a new driver’s license, but can’t legally drive themselves there. That said, the law was passed last month, and anyone following the news would’ve known about its looming implementation.
More importantly, the viral claims that transgender people are now banned from driving, voting, etc., in Kansas are objectively false. All they have to do is get a driver’s license that accurately lists their sex, and then they can do everything as normal. Besides, this change doesn’t even affect the many transgender people who never changed their sex designation to align with their identity, rather than biological reality, on documents, when that was allowed under old Kansas policies.
People are free to disagree with Kansas’s new policy and explain why they think it’s fine for people to list whatever they want as their sex on their ID. The once-great, now laughable American Civil Liberties Union is, for its part, arguing that there is a constitutional right to list false information on government IDs. But it is dishonest and harmful to blatantly lie about what the policy is and needlessly scare people. Other influencers and social media commentators are echoing these claims to suggest that transgender people are facing a “genocide” in America.
TRUMP PREDICTS MORE US DEATHS IN IRAN OPERATION
This is where things get, frankly, scary.
Most transgender-identifying people are not violent and are, in fact, more likely to be victims of violent crime than others. But there’s no denying that a select subset of hyper-online trans activists is radicalized and potentially violent. So, pouring more fuel on the fire with false claims about imaginary threats to their rights and safety isn’t just reckless and wrong — it’s dangerous.
Brad Polumbo is an independent journalist and host of the Brad vs Everyone podcast.