Chaos in wake of anti-trans Kansas law [View all]

Last edited Sun Jun 14, 2026, 12:09 PM - Edit history (1)

(Salon) When Kansas’ latest anti-trans law took effect on February 26, Matthew Neumann was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Driver’s licenses and birth certificates with updated gender markers became invalid overnight, while public restrooms transformed into hunting grounds for the thousands of transgender Americans living and working in the state.

As the founder and executive director of the LGBTQ Foundation of Kansas, Neumann intended to stand his ground and hold onto his license no matter what notice he’d receive from the government. He told Salon he wanted to be a beacon of resistance as more vulnerable community members scrambled around him to secure their documentation.

“In the community, there was so much confusion and fear,” Neumann said. “There were people running to the DMV and changing it out before they got the letter — if they got the letter. There were people getting the letter, and they didn’t even have a driver’s license. There were people that were not getting the letter asking me, ‘Well, what do I do?’ And we were checking our statuses on the website to see if we had a valid driver’s license for over a month.”

From where Neumann stood in rural Larned, the shoe never quite fell. But all hell did break loose in other ways. ..............................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/06/14/three-months-into-kansas-anti-trans-law-confusion-and-fear-persist/