KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A state judge ruled Monday Kansas must not allow transgender Kansans to change their sex on their driver's licenses.
It's the latest battle over a new law in Kansas that defines a person's gender.
Windsor, a lifelong Kansan, was in the middle of her ID change process when she heard the news.
Windsor asked KSHB 41 to use only her first name.
She says it feels like yet another chisel chipping away at her freedom to identity.
She had a personal message to Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach and Judge Teresa Watson, who issued the ruling.
"I want you to look at me as a person," she said. "I don't want you to look at me as a data set. I don't want you to look at me as the opposition. I want you to look at me as a human being and I want you to understand that what you're doing is directly impacting my ability to live."
Windsor started her transition four years ago and moved forward with her life.
In those same years, she says, legislation has moved backwards.
"There was a lot of hope" Windsor said. "They were making a lot of strides in the community, and everybody was coming together and now it just feels like everything's falling apart."
Windsor also feels it's a struggle to be the person she wants to be.
"They're trying to push back the laws that currently exist," Windsor said. "They're trying to institute new regulations and new laws that make it harder to live as a trans person."
The order from Judge Watson means Windsor's own ID change, which was nearly finished, might never happen.
"I might not get to see my gender marker changed," she said. "Not only am I stuck in limbo, as in I don't know what's going to happen, but I have this impending sense of dread that I'm not going to be able to get the gender marker changed at all."
For Windsor, it's more than just an "M" or an "F" on the bottom of an ID.
It is a sense of identity itself.
"It matters a lot," Windsor said.
It also matters for paperwork and for ID checks. Both of those got much more complicated.
"Every single time I fill out an online form there's a gender marker box and most of the time you know I really have to think about, you know, is this going to match the records?" Windsor said.
But things changed before and Windsor hopes maybe they'll change again.
"If and when I get to mark that F, I'm going to feel like me," Windsor said.
The judge's order will stay in effect for two weeks unless the judge orders it extended.
