Two facts about Curmie:
1. He lived in Kansas for seven years, working on his doctorate and staying on for another year when a full-time teaching gig didn’t materialize. At the time, the state legislature was more conservative than Curmie would have preferred, but it wasn’t controlled by wackadoodles.
2. He’s friends with (at least) six trans people, one of whom is also his nephew. None of them, thankfully, live in Kansas.
Yes, it’s true that the lead story of the past few days is
yet another reckless act by the Sociopath-in-Chief. Were Curmie of a cynical disposition, he
might suggest that killing little girls is a rather bizarre (and
ineffective) means of trying to divert attention away from credible evidence
that one has raped little girls.
But that was an act of desperation perpetrated by a single person (well,
and his sycophantic minions) and whose victims committed the grievous ethical
failing of being born in a different country.
What happened this week in Kansas was, in its own way, even worse.
No, there won’t be any Kansans buried under the rubble of
their elementary school, but the level of bigotry disguised as piety and of quite
intentional cruelty perpetrated for its own sake by the Kansas legislature is
startling, even when compared to other examples of GOP malevolence towards
their own constituents. If you haven’t
been following the story, Gentle Reader, Kansas Republicans overrode a
gubernatorial veto and essentially disenfranchised trans voters, while causing
the maximum amount of disruption in their lives in other ways, as well. This was made easier for the bigots by circumventing
the standard opportunity for the public to weigh in an issue: a tactic called “gut
and go,” by which the contents of a bill are “replaced” by, well, whatever the
hell some jackass wants, thereby bypassing the public. It’s now the “House Substitute for Senate
Bill 244.”
A letter dated February 23 informed trans people that as of February 26, their state-issued driver’s
licenses would no longer be valid because such identification, according to K.S.A.
77-207, must show the sex of the individual at birth. Moreover, “the Legislature did not provide a
grace period for updating credentials.
This means that once the law is officially enacted, your current
credential will be invalid immediately, and you may be subject to additional
penalties if you are operating a vehicle without a valid credential.” Oh, bloody hell.
But wait! That’s not
all! Recipients of that letter are
“directed to surrender [their] current credential to the Kansas Division of
Vehicles.” A “new credential reflecting the
gender identification consistent with statutory requirements” would then be
issued. OK, all this is annoying enough
simply at face value. But the real devil,
and here Curmie really does mean the physical manifestation of evil, is in the
details.
Where to begin? First
off, who cares whether that one letter on a license is an M or an F, since both
are acceptable? The best argument is
that it helps identify the driver. More
than a photo does? Anyway, the more important
thing is that things change over time.
Curmie used to have a Kansas driver’s license. It listed his hair color as brown and his
weight at 155 pounds. Both of those descriptions
were accurate 30-something years ago when Curmie moved to Kansas. Today, however, while there are still a few
brown strands in there, the hair is grey (well, maybe “silver” if someone
wanted to get on my good side) and the weight was about three inches of waist
size ago. More to the point, those
things can change over just the duration of the license. Other folks change their names: they get
married or divorced, for example. The world
changes, except in what passes for a brain in a Republican pol, and we ought to
try to keep up as best we can.
There are some areas in which reasonable people can disagree. There are legitimate fairness arguments that trans women ought not to be playing women’s sports, for example. Perhaps, although Curmie knows of not a
single case in which a trans woman, or even someone pretending to be a
trans woman, harassed cis women in a rest room, there’s perhaps a scintilla of honest,
paranoia-free, argumentation in favor of bathroom bills. (Needless to say, Curmie disagrees with that
perspective, but at least there’s the potential for a rationale.)
But what the hell has “sex at birth” to do with ability to operate a car? Men can drive; women can drive. So can murderers, rapists, thieves… even (gasp!) “illegal aliens,” all legally. Oh, and pedophiles, too; mustn’t forget them. So even if being trans were to be regarded as unlawful (alas, there have been attempts, including in Curmie’s adopted state of Texas, to make it so), that shouldn’t prevent someone from having a driver’s license. And there’s certainly nothing about being trans that translates (Curmie apologizes; he couldn’t resist) into being a danger on the road. People who are, like those with multiple DUI convictions, can still have a driver’s license. But trans folks who legally had their “M” changed to an “F” or vice versa: nope.
Oh, and if you’re trans, you need a new ID, even if your old
one does show your sex at birth. Andrea Ellis legally changed her name in
December, then updated her driver’s license in January. But, she “saw the writing on the wall after
listening to [Attorney General] Kobach’s testimony for H.B. 2426” (the bill that
would eventually morph into SB 244 and its demon spawn). She therefore didn’t change the gender marker
on her license, but got the same letter as other transgendered folks. Yes, she had to change out her old license
for one that was literally identical.
She’s trans, after all.
Then we add on the timing. Apparently these letters were sent by mail no sooner than a Monday, and recipients had only until Wednesday to follow the dictates, as the law would go into effect on Thursday. Of course, the morons on SCOTUS have decided that it’s OK for the postal service to intentionally not deliver mail, so that potentially complicates things even more. Chances are very good that some people didn’t even know about what they were required to do until it was literally too late. What if they were on vacation, for example?
And then they were expected to turn in their old “credential.” In person, of course, and you know damned well there will be no extended hours. So that means taking time off work on short notice, finding a way to the office because you aren’t allowed to drive there, waiting in line, paying $46 (according to one source) for a new ID (poll tax, anyone?), and apparently waiting up to 45 days for a new license (N.B., Curmie isn’t completely convinced about the legitimacy of this claim), without which you’re not allowed to drive: not to work, not to the grocery store, not to visit a friend or relative in the hospital (or hospice), nowhere.
It is, of course, self-evident that new licenses could be
created with considerably more alacrity than that—the technology exists to do
so in no more than a few minutes—but the powers-that-be will slow-walk the
process as much as they can, for no other reason than that, for them, cruelty is
fun. There is no rationality for this
law, just bigotry and hatred. Oh, and
they’re handing out $1000 bounties for today’s variation on narcs, i.e.,
those who report folks they decide are peeing in the wrong restroom. For a group that thinks “communists” (anyone
to the left of Jesse Helms, in other words) are worse than, say, pedophiles,
these asswipes sure do like to emulate the Stasi.
Well, actually, the disenfranchisement might be the
rationale, as it obviously is for the SAVE Act: identify a group likely to oppose
the Reich-wing zealots, and make it harder for them to vote. That’s the argument raised by real-life
Friend of Curmie Will Averill,
in a Substack post that also suggests that GOP pols are particularly interested
in “Bein’ Hicks and Checkin’ Dicks.”
Will doesn’t say this outright, but Curmie will: this obsession with
examining specific body parts is perilously close to the prurient if not the
perverse. But that’s OK, you see, because
they’re “protecting our women and children.”
<Sigh.>
There is no lack of posturing on this issue. Lyft, for example hastened to the rescue, promising half-price rides… which are limited to $10 and expire early next week, long before there’s any reasonable solution. That’s not help; that’s a scammy marketing campaign.
The ACLU is filing suit on behalf of two transgendered Kansans, and it appears that there might be some
other litigants, as well. That’s a start,
but the suit names only folks like the state Attorney General and Director of Vehicles, not
the legislators who are directly responsible for this travesty. Curmie’s no lawyer, so maybe that’s the
appropriate tack, but it still seems insufficient.
Curmie is not, as a rule, given to “thin edge of the wedge”
arguments, but with various federal agencies not merely admitting, but bragging
about, compiling files on, say, people photographing ICE abuses with the goal
of labeling such folks as domestic terrorists, the thought that one violation
of Constitutional rights might lead to another becomes foregrounded. And that famous passage by Martin Niemöller referenced
in the title of this piece floats to the surface.
One thing is clear.
Even if we were to buy the spurious argument that trans women in particular
are just pretending to be something they’re not, such a subterfuge would pale
in qualitative significance in comparison to these… erm… individuals of Oedipal
predilections masquerading as Christians.
Curmie has pondered whether every single pol who voted for this heinous
bill should, in a just universe, be horse-whipped or sent to the stocks for a
week to be pelted with rotten vegetables.
¿Por Qué No Los Dos?
