M. Gessen, a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author, has written about autocracy in Russia and beyond. But in an August New York Times opinion piece titled “What’s Happening in Kansas Should Alarm Us All,” they turned their eye to America’s heartland.
A Kansas law that took effect earlier this year suddenly invalidated the driver’s licenses and birth certificates of transgender people who had changed their gender markers. It also banned people from using public bathrooms that don’t match their sex assigned at birth — and lets people sue others they believe are violating the law.
Gessen detailed how these changes have sown confusion and fear among transgender residents, and upended many of their lives. Many transgender people in Kansas are now apprehensive about an everyday activity like using the bathroom, like Lawrence resident Siobhan Kirchstein, who was reported to state authorities for using the women’s bathroom at work and could face fines or a lawsuit.
Many are unsure if they can continue to drive or work with their IDs. Some who have gotten their gender markers changed back, to comply with the new law, report uncomfortable encounters with authorities because their identification now seems to contradict their outward appearances.
Gessen likens the current situation in Kansas to Nazi Germany, when Jews were required to add a middle name to their documents to identify that they were Jewish: Israel for men and Sara for women.
“The purpose of that was so that anybody who saw your ID would immediately know that you were Jewish. It’s kind of the precursor to the yellow star,” Gessen told KCUR’s Kansas City Today. “Focusing on people's driver's licenses and either taking them away, which basically makes it impossible to live in Kansas, or forcing people essentially to come out to anybody who sees their driver's license — routine traffic stop, a building with security, buying alcohol, picking up your kids from school — you have this gender marker that's discordant with the way that you present, and that reminded me of that Nazi move.”
Gessen argues that the way these rules target trans people, and the arbitrary manner in which they are being enforced, is another hallmark of fascism. In their op-ed, they report that about 1,700 Kansans have received a letter declaring that their driver’s licenses are invalid — but many other trans people have received no letter at all, while some received multiple letters.
This has the effect, Gessen said, of creating even more fear and uncertainty for trans people who aren’t sure where they stand.
“The laws no longer apply to you in the same way that they apply to other people,” Gessen said. “You can no longer depend on state protections or on having your rights recognized in the same way that the rights of other people are recognized.”
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
On why the new driver’s license policy in Kansas counts as fascism:
One of the hallmarks of fascism is creating an exclusionary idea of the national community. One of the concepts that is very important to me in understanding fascism is Hannah Arendt's concept of “denationalization.” And she wrote about denationalization as something that the Nazis started doing to Jews many years before the Holocaust, these moves that sometimes seemed absurd, and sometimes seemed mean-spirited but inconsequential. They all added up to pushing people outside the boundaries of the nation.
On why trans people leaving states like Kansas is similar to a refugee crisis:
I interviewed two different people in Colorado who have been helping people relocate, but they also told me that there are about a dozen other organizations around the country that have popped up in the last couple of years with the slate of anti-trans legislation that actually predates the second Trump administration. There are states where families have had to leave because their children's gender-affirming care was cut off, the passage of extremely restrictive bathroom bills. And then there's Kansas, which again created this crisis by sort of revoking people's documents overnight, but there have been many people in Kansas who have needed help — either emergency assistance because of the crisis that they were experiencing, connected with the passage of this law, or more prominently, people who had to relocate to other states.
On the inconsistent enforcement of the driver’s license law:
It's typical of fascism because the goal of a fascist legal regime is not to create a predictable and stable system of, say, enforcing, in this case, the gender binary. It is actually the exact opposite: It is to create an atmosphere of fear and terror. That is achieved through inconsistent enforcement. I suspect this is not conscious on the part of the state of Kansas. I think it's actually very difficult to create a reliable database of people whose gender marker has changed in their driver's license, because if they were not born in Kansas, or if they didn't go through their name change or their gender marker change in Kansas, the state doesn't have that documentation.
What that means, however, for the people affected, is that even if they haven't received the letter, their driver's license is technically invalid, in the sense that the law says that it is illegal to have a driver's license with a gender marker inconsistent with the sex assigned at birth. At the same time, if they log on to the Kansas Division of Motor Vehicles website, and they look up their personal driver's license, it comes up as being valid. And so that places them in this gray area that's kind of outside the law, which is also an essential part of this process of denationalization.
On why it’s important for national readers to pay attention to Kansas:
The standard answer to that question is you should care about this because it could happen to you, too. That's not my reason, and I actually find that standard line of reasoning kind of upsetting, because I don't think that people should care about horrible things that happen to other people only because those things could also happen to them. We should all care about the fact that one of the states in our country is creating a fascist regime in relationship to one of the groups in the population. That's it. Period. End of story. We should care.
On their own experiences as a transgender person reporting this story:
It felt super uncomfortable. One of the things that your listeners may or may not know about, is that the Kansas law also places a bounty on trans people using bathrooms, meaning you can sue a person for $1,000 if you see them using the “wrong” bathroom. So, I tried to minimize my use of public bathrooms. At one point, the photographer I was working with asked me if I drink water because they were always carrying a water bottle, as one does in extreme heat. And I wasn't. I said, “Well, I drink more water when I have more reliable access to bathrooms.” But actually, for the entire week that we were reporting from Kansas, I rationed my water intake, so I wouldn't have to deal with the bathroom issue quite so much.
And yet, there were several rest stops where I had to make a decision. I'm male-presenting, right? So, going into the women's bathroom is a nonstarter. Going into a men's bathroom is much easier — men don't look at each other in the bathroom. But every time I did it, I was also aware of the fact that I was breaking the law.
On what was surprising about Kansas:
I was completely blown away by Lawrence. I did not expect such an interesting place. I mean, I knew it was a college town. I knew that there was a big LGBT community there, but there's something really special about that place, I think. It's just so queer and there's such a strong sense of community and mutual aid, and a kind of organic interdependency that I think you very rarely see in this country. I found it really lovely and surprising.
