This story originally appeared on The Advocate.
A Kansas judge says one transgender driver can take the wheel again.
After Jamie Miller’s license was suspended under a new state law, Douglas County District Judge James McCabria temporarily restored her driving privileges, ruling that the state likely violated her right to due process when it invalidated the license, according to the Kansas Reflector.
The ruling followed Miller’s legal challenge to Senate Bill 244, which bars driver’s licenses with gender markers that do not correspond with a person’s sex assigned at birth and restricts restroom use in public buildings based on sex assigned at birth. Miller’s lawsuit focused only on the driver’s license provisions of the law and argued that invalidating her license compromised her ability to care for her disabled adult daughter.
Related: Kansas immediately revokes transgender residents’ driver’s licenses
“The child needs medication. The child needs doctor’s visits. The child needs transportation,” said David Brown, Miller’s attorney. Brown said Miller had been forced to travel by e-bike while challenging the law.
McCabria’s ruling notably did not decide whether Miller ultimately would be required to change the gender marker on her license from female to male. “That is not the subject of this decision. This decision is about the process, not the subject matter of the underlying dispute,” the judge wrote.
McCabria ruled only that the state likely violated Miller’s right to due process by invalidating her license without providing clear notice and a meaningful opportunity to appeal. The state’s contradictory instructions, he wrote, were plainly confusing.
He summarized the state’s notices this way: “Your license will be invalid in two days, you can appeal, no, wait, your license isn’t invalid yet, you can appeal, no, wait, your license has been invalidated because you didn’t do anything to appeal but if you want to appeal, call us.”
McCabria has consolidated Miller’s lawsuit with another challenge addressing the law’s restroom restrictions. A trial over the statute’s validity is scheduled to begin in September. McCabria granted Miller a temporary injunction but declined to block any portion of the law statewide.
The order therefore applies only to Miller. Other transgender Kansans whose licenses were invalidated are not covered by it.
