TOPEKA, Kan. — The Republican-controlled Kansas Legislature approved a third bill regulating the lives of transgender Kansans on Friday, this time banning hormone therapy and gender transition surgery for minors.
The House voted 70-52 and the Senate voted 23-12 to send the bill to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s desk. The votes fell well short of a veto-proof majority.
Kelly will likely reject the bill, which allows for lawsuits against physicians who provide the care and would allow the state Board of Healing Arts to strip away a provider’s license.
Kelly has previously called Republican-led bills targeting transgender Kansans “painful” and “mean.” Last month she vetoed a bill which would have barred transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports. The Legislature overrode that veto Wednesday.
Iridescent Riffel, a transgender woman who is a graduate student at the University of Kansas, said the bill will not stop minors from receiving the care. It will just make the care less safe, she said.
“Trans people will pursue procedures in whatever means they can to receive gender-affirming care, for these surgeries, and for whatever will allow them to feel more at home in their bodies,” Riffel said.
“It is frustrating, it is dehumanizing. It’s going to lead to a lot. You can only push and push and push and diminish a community, you can only other people so much until something snaps.”
The bill is one of many amid a wave of anti-transgender legislation pushed by Kansas Republicans. Nationwide, 30 states have pushed Republican-led legislation this session that would punish physicians for performing gender-affirming care on transgender minors, according to a 2023 study by the Williams Institute.
“Here we are fast-tracking a bill taking away their identities … This is despicable,” said state Rep. Jo Ella Hoye, a Lenexa Democrat.
But proponents of the bill argue children may come to regret treatment and that such decisions should be left to adults.
“We all know that children change their minds. How many children know what they want to be when they grow up?” state Rep. Susan Humphries, a Wichita Republican, said.
State Rep. Steven Howe, a Salina Republican, said he supports the bill but that the issue is more nuanced than how it’s been presented. He disputed the notion that supporters of the legislation don’t care about transgender children.
“I agree that kids do have value and that’s why I’m going to support the bill,” Howe said.
Earlier this week, the Legislature sent a bill to Kelly’s desk that would ban trans and nonbinary people from any single-sex space that does not align with their sex assigned at birth.
State Rep. Boog Highberger, a Lawrence Democrat, told his fellow lawmakers in the House that he hadn’t ever seen “a group as obsessed with sex as this body.”
State. Rep. John Eplee, an Atchison Republican who is a physician, opposed the measure. He said he has two transgender patients and that the issue was too complicated to deal with on short notice and in the middle of the night.
“This is indeed a highly emotional, deeply, deeply complex issue,” Eplee said.
Brittany Jones, a lobbyist for Kansas Family Voice who has advocated for the legislation, said she expects Kelly to veto the bill. She said her organization will work to override the veto.
“It’s up to the Kansas Legislature to protect these kids,” she said. “We encourage Gov. Kelly to protect these kids. It’s a reasonable approach to ensure these procedures are only stopped for children. We think the governor should sign it when it reaches her desk, but if she doesn’t sign it, we hope the Legislature will stand ready to override that veto.”
Daphne Cornelius, a Wichita transgender woman who began transitioning at the age of 39, said receiving gender-affirming care helped her become comfortable in her own skin, though receiving care was “not an easy road.”
“Taking away the hormones and the ability for children to live their lives in a body they are comfortable with will lead to more suicides and more suicide attempts,” she said. “It will open the door to bullying and harassment if they can’t be the gender they know is their authentic self.”
____
(The Star’s Jonathan Shorman contributed reporting.)
