Kansas House passes ban on gender affirming care for trans youth. Senate debate ahead
The Kansas Senate is poised to debate restrictions to transgender health care after the House on Wednesday approved a sweeping bill banning hormone therapy and gender transition surgery for minors.
The House voted 80-40 to approve the bill, falling four votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a likely veto from Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly. But if all four Republican lawmakers who were absent on Wednesday vote yes, Republicans would have a veto-proof majority.
The bill now heads to the Senate, where debate is expected as early as Thursday.
The measure is the latest in a string of proposals in Kansas and other red states nationwide targeting transgender rights. House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican, and other House GOP leaders in a joint statement after the vote said the job of legislators is to ensure the right protections are in place to ensure the well-being of Kansas children.
“Today we move Kansas one step closer to joining 22 other states and multiple European nations in protecting children from these life-altering drugs and surgeries while preserving a litany of mental health treatments to address underlying issues,” the Republican leaders said.
House Minority Leader Vic Miller, a Topeka Democrat, criticized Republicans for pushing this bill after years of arguments for parental rights.
“They’re hungry for control,” Miller said. “They just can’t help themselves, as proven by the annual iterations of bills like this. Let parents parent and let health care workers provide care.”
Last year Missouri blocked transgender minors from accessing hormone therapy and transition surgery, referred to by medical groups as gender affirming care. In Kansas, lawmakers blocked transgender athletes from competing in girls and womens sports and defined man and woman in state law by sex assigned at birth.
“What they are doing is trying to remove LGBTQ Kansans, starting with trans people, from Kansas. They want us to relocate. They want us to leave. They don’t care if our kids die. The cruelty is the point,” Iridescent Riffel, a trans woman from Lawrence, said.
Cat Poland, a Kansas mother to a trans teen, said lawmakers were sending her family a sign that “Kansas doesn’t want us here.”
Though major medical associations across the country support the use of hormone therapy and gender transition surgery for minors, proponents of the bill insist the care is not proven to benefit youth and poses a risk if someone regrets the care in their adulthood.
“There’s no reason to continue these transgender treatments on children because the risk of severe side effects and long term effects such as infertility are serious,” Rep. Ron Bryce, a Coffeyville Republican and physician licensed in Texas, said during debate on the bill Tuesday.
The bill approved Wednesday threatens the medical licenses of providers who offer gender affirming care to minors and allows for lawsuits against those practitioners for 10 years after their patient turns 18.
It also blocks the use of any state funds or resources for gender transition, including social transitioning that involves no medical interventions. It prohibits state employees who work with children from “promoting the use of social transition.”
“You’re asking mental health professionals, medical professionals to ignore this really small segment of the population and not provide treatment for them. That is unethical,” said Rep. Susan Ruiz, a Lenexa Democrat.
The Star’s Jenna Barackman contributed to this report.
