TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) 鈥 Kansas鈥 Democratic governor on Thursday vetoed a sweeping set of anti-transgender measures, including a ban on gender-affirming care for children and teenagers, but the Republican lawmakers who pushed them appeared to have the votes to override most of her actions.
Gov. Laura Kelly rejected restrictions for transgender people in using restrooms, locker rooms and other public facilities; limits on where they are housed in state prisons and county jails; and even restrictions on rooming arrangements for transgender youth on overnight school trips.
Her actions highlighted how her Republican-leaning state has become a fiercely contested battleground as GOP lawmakers across the U.S. target LGBTQ+ rights through several hundred proposals. Kelly narrowly won reelection in November, but the Legislature has GOP supermajorities and conservative leaders who have made rolling back transgender rights a priority.
The measures on bathrooms, jails and overnight school trips passed earlier this month with the two-thirds majorities needed to override a veto, and on April 5, of a separate ban on female transgender athletes in girls' and women's sports. However, two days later, the measure on gender-affirming care fell 12 House votes short of a supermajority.
Kelly said in statement on the four vetoes that measures 鈥渟tripping away rights鈥 would hurt the state's ability to attract businesses. The vetoes also were in keeping with her promises to block any measure she views as discriminating against LGBTQ+ people.
鈥淐ompanies have made it clear that they are not interested in doing business with states that discriminate against workers and their families," Kelly said in her statement. 鈥淚鈥檓 focused on the economy. Anyone care to join me?鈥
At least 14 states with GOP-led legislatures have enacted laws against gender-affirming care for minors, . At least seven have bathroom laws, mostly focusing on schools, and at least 21 have imposed restrictions on transgender athletes.
would have applied not only to bathrooms and locker rooms outside schools but rape crisis centers, domestic violence shelters and state prisons, as well as the county jails covered by a separate vetoed bill. Because it also sought to define 鈥渟ex鈥 as 鈥渆ither male or female, at birth,鈥 transgender people wouldn鈥檛 have been able to change the gender marker on their driver鈥檚 licenses, though still would have allowed them to change their birth certificates.
Advocates of LGBTQ+ rights see the measure as transgender people and denying recognition to non-binary, gender-fluid or gender non-conforming people.
鈥淚 am not going to go back to those days of hiding in the closet,鈥 Justin Brace, executive director of Transgender Kansas, said during a recent transgender rights rally outside the Statehouse. 鈥淲e are in a fight for our lives, literally.鈥
GOP conservatives argue that many of their constituents reject the cultural shift toward accepting that people鈥檚 gender identities can differ from the sex assigned them a birth; don't want cisgender women sharing bathrooms and locker rooms with transgender women; and question gender-affirming care such as puberty-blocking drugs, hormone therapies and surgeries.
鈥淏y any reasonable standard, governing from the middle of the road should include ensuring vulnerable children do not become victims of woke culture run amok,鈥 Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson said in a statement deriding Kelly's veto of the ban on gender-affirming care.
would have required the state's medical board to revoke the license of any doctor discovered to have provided such care and allowed people who received such care as children to sue health care providers later.
Supporters said the bill would not keep transgender youth from receiving counseling or psychiatric therapy. But the measure also applied to 鈥渃ausing鈥 acts that "affirm the child鈥檚 perception of the child鈥檚 sex鈥 if it differs from their gender assigned at birth.
Treatments for children and teens have been available in the U.S. for more than a decade and
鈥淚t鈥檚 one thing to have a family member that鈥檚 unaffirming of who you are as a person,鈥 said Derrick Jordan, a licensed therapist who works with trans youth and directs the Gender and Family Project at New York鈥檚 Ackerman Institute for training child and family therapists. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a whole other thing to have a system tell you you鈥檙e not fully human or you don鈥檛 have the same rights as other folks.鈥
Kelly鈥檚 office said would have complicated the administration of multiple state programs 鈥 including programs assisting women farmers and hunters. Also, it said, some of those programs would have violated federal anti-discrimination laws, and the state could have lost federal dollars.
The measure borrows language from a proposal from several anti-trans groups. It says the 鈥渋mportant governmental objectives" of protecting health safety and privacy justify separate public facilities for men and women and the measure would have applied 鈥渨here biology, safety or privacy鈥 prompt sex-separation. It defines male and female based on a person鈥檚 reproductive anatomy at birth.
While supporters of the legislation avoid calling it a bathroom bill, they have said repeatedly that it would have prevented transgender women from sharing bathrooms, locker rooms and other facilities with cisgender women.
Masterson portrayed Kelly's veto as 鈥渘ot being able to define a woman." That's a widespread anti-trans talking point at odds with doctors who say that reproductive anatomy at birth doesn鈥檛 always align with strict definitions of sex and that binary views of sexual identity can miss biological nuances.
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