Topeka, Kansas –
The Democratic governor of Kansas on Thursday vetoed a comprehensive package of measures to combat transgender people, including a ban on gender-affirming care for children and teenagers, but the Republican lawmakers who pushed them said she appeared to have votes to overrule most of the actions of
Governor Laura Kelly has rejected restrictions on transgender people’s use of restrooms, changing rooms and other public facilities. State and County Jail Placement Limits. Even a transgender youth is restricted from staying overnight on her school trip.
Her actions underscored how her Republican-leaning state has become a hotly contested contest as Republican lawmakers across the country target LGBTQ+ rights through hundreds of proposals. Kerry won her re-election by a narrow margin in November, but Congress has an overwhelming Republican majority and conservative leaders who make the rollback of transgender rights a priority.
A bill on toilets, prisons and night school trips passed earlier this month, requiring a two-thirds vote to overturn a veto, and on April 5, lawmakers overturned Kelly’s March veto, Separately banned female transgender athletes in girls’ and women’s sports. But two days after her, the gender-affirming care bill fell short of her overwhelming majority in the House by 12 votes.
In a statement on the four vetoes, Kelly said any “disenfranchising” action would undermine the state’s ability to attract business. Her veto was also in line with her promise to block any measures she deems discriminatory against LGBTQ+ people.
“The company has made it clear that it is not interested in doing business with states that discriminate against workers and their families,” Kelly said in a statement. “I’m focused on the economy. Can anyone join me?”
At least 14 states with Republican-led legislatures have enacted laws banning gender-affirming care for minors, including North Dakota as of Wednesday. At least seven countries have toilet laws, mostly aimed at schools, and at least 21 impose restrictions on transgender athletes.
The Kansas toilet bill would have applied not only to toilets and changing rooms outside schools, but also to rape crisis centers, domestic violence shelters, state prisons, and county jails covered by another denial bill. It also sought to define “gender” as “male or female at birth,” so transgender people would not have been able to change the gender marker on their driver’s license, although a 2019 federal court order still allowed. I should have. Change your birth certificate.
LGBTQ+ rights advocates view the action as legally killing transgender people and denying recognition to nonbinary, gender fluid, or gender nonconforming people.
Justin Brace, executive director of Transgender Kansas, said at a recent trans rights rally outside the state capitol, “I’m not going back to the days of hiding in the closet.” We are fighting for our lives.”
Republican conservatives argue that many of their members reject a cultural change that accepts that people’s gender identity may differ from the gender they were assigned at birth. I don’t want cisgender women sharing bathrooms or locker rooms with transgender women. It also calls into question gender-affirming care such as drugs that block puberty, hormone therapy, and surgery.
In a statement, Kansas Senate Speaker Ty Masterson criticized Kelly’s refusal to ban gender-affirming care, saying, “Governing from the middle of the road doesn’t help vulnerable children. It should include ensuring that we do not become victims of an awakened cultural runaway.”
Kansas’s action requires the state’s medical board to revoke the licenses of physicians found to have provided such treatment, and to allow people who received such treatment as children to later receive medical care. allowed to sue the person.
Supporters said the bill would not prevent transgender youth from seeking counseling or psychotherapy. However, this measure also applied to acts that “affirmed the child’s perception of the child’s gender” and “caused” if it differed from the gender assigned at birth.
Treatments for children and teenagers have been available in the United States for over a decade and are approved by major medical associations.
“It’s one thing to have a family that doesn’t affirm who you are as a person,” says Gender and Family at the Ackerman Institute in New York to work with transgender youth and train child and family therapists. said Derrick Jordan, a licensed therapist who directs the project for . That is.”
Kelly’s office said the Kansas toilet bill would complicate the administration of programs in multiple states — including programs that help women farmers and hunters. state anti-discrimination laws and could lose federal money.
The measure borrows words from proposals from several anti-trans groups. It states that “important government objectives” of protecting health security and privacy justify gender-segregated public facilities, and that the measure promotes gender segregation “for biology, safety or privacy.” states that it would have been applied in some cases. Males and females are defined based on their reproductive anatomy at birth.
Proponents of the law avoid calling it a bathroom bill, but have repeatedly said it would prevent transgender women from sharing bathrooms, changing rooms and other facilities with cisgender women. It’s here.
Masterson described Kelly’s veto as “a woman cannot be defined”. , which is at odds with doctors who argue that a dualistic view of gender identity can miss biological nuances.
