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Charges dropped for trans woman threatened with jail over license debacle caused by anti-trans law
A trans woman in Kansas accused of operating a motor vehicle without a valid license learned on Tuesday that charges against her have been dropped, Transitic News reports. Kris Ripper had been threatened with jail time after a traffic stop last month, despite following rules mandated by a new law in the state that erased accurate gender markers from official identity documents.
The ordeal started when Ripper was driving home in the rain on May 5, and was pulled over by a cop; her headlights were off after a brief patch of sun. Confusion followed.
“After seeing my license, he spent like 10 minutes questioning me on if my license was real before I explained to him that I am a transgender woman,” Ripper told Transitics. “It has to say ‘M’ legally. He just awkwardly gave it back to me and sent me on my way with a verbal warning.” Ripper says she wasn’t issued a citation. And under the new, draconian rules in Kansas, she shouldn’t have been.
In February, Republican lawmakers in Kansas rammed Senate Bill 244 through the legislature without debate. The “one-stop shop of hate,” in the words of State Sen. Abi Boatman (D), the legislature’s lone transgender member, revoked the official documents of trans people, banned them from using bathrooms in public buildings that match their gender identity, and created a bounty hunter incentive for Kansans to sue transgender people that they encounter in restrooms.
Trans Kansans received letters the same week stating that their driver’s licenses were no longer valid with the passage of the law, which went into effect over Gov. Laura Kelly’s (D) veto. Ripper and at least 1700 other trans Kansans with driver’s licenses reflecting their gender identity were forced to turn in their old licenses and carry new ones with a gender marker reflecting their sex at birth.
Ripper did so in March. But this week, she received another notice stating that she had failed to appear in court for an arraignment on charges of driving without a valid license. She was given 30 days to show up in court. Failure to appear would constitute an admission of guilt and would carry a 6-month jail sentence and a $1,000 fine.
*snip*
In an about-face on Tuesday, however, country prosecutors dropped the charges against Ripper.
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/06/charges-dropped-for-trans-woman-with-over-license-debacle-caused-by-anti-trans-law/
The ordeal started when Ripper was driving home in the rain on May 5, and was pulled over by a cop; her headlights were off after a brief patch of sun. Confusion followed.
“After seeing my license, he spent like 10 minutes questioning me on if my license was real before I explained to him that I am a transgender woman,” Ripper told Transitics. “It has to say ‘M’ legally. He just awkwardly gave it back to me and sent me on my way with a verbal warning.” Ripper says she wasn’t issued a citation. And under the new, draconian rules in Kansas, she shouldn’t have been.
In February, Republican lawmakers in Kansas rammed Senate Bill 244 through the legislature without debate. The “one-stop shop of hate,” in the words of State Sen. Abi Boatman (D), the legislature’s lone transgender member, revoked the official documents of trans people, banned them from using bathrooms in public buildings that match their gender identity, and created a bounty hunter incentive for Kansans to sue transgender people that they encounter in restrooms.
Trans Kansans received letters the same week stating that their driver’s licenses were no longer valid with the passage of the law, which went into effect over Gov. Laura Kelly’s (D) veto. Ripper and at least 1700 other trans Kansans with driver’s licenses reflecting their gender identity were forced to turn in their old licenses and carry new ones with a gender marker reflecting their sex at birth.
Ripper did so in March. But this week, she received another notice stating that she had failed to appear in court for an arraignment on charges of driving without a valid license. She was given 30 days to show up in court. Failure to appear would constitute an admission of guilt and would carry a 6-month jail sentence and a $1,000 fine.
*snip*
In an about-face on Tuesday, however, country prosecutors dropped the charges against Ripper.
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/06/charges-dropped-for-trans-woman-with-over-license-debacle-caused-by-anti-trans-law/
I don't even know where to start with this pernicious nonsense. I guess this is the kind of thing that can happen when hate is put into action by those who are pathetically uninformed about the thing they have decided to direct their hate at. I'm sure the Kansas State legislators who voted for this bill were rubbing their hands together in anticipation of police arresting masculine looking people with an F gender marker on their driver's licenses. It just never occurred to them that a trans person might actually LOOK like the gender they are living as rather than the sex assigned to them at birth!
