Shawnee City Council pearl-clutching over transgender children is a sorry smokescreen
The Shawnee City Council set a new low this week in the bizarre argument over sports access for transgender students.
Voting 7-1, the council approved a legislative guidance memo that directs staff to support a state ban on “biological males” participating in girls-only youth sports.
The vote came after several speakers implored the council to reject the language. The proposal rests on “bigotry and hate,” one resident said. An adult transgender speaker said the proposal sends a message that “we’re not welcome here.”
Oh, and “this has nothing to do with the work of municipal government,” said Alex Welch Blattner, which is true: Why, exactly, is the Shawnee City Council wasting valuable time and energy on a topic over which it has no authority at all?
Council member Eric Jenkins tried to explain. In a rambling speech, the Ward 2 representative said a transgender college swimmer competing in Pennsylvania upset him, somehow.
“We’re talking about protecting a young woman who’s worked her entire life to achieve some goals,” he said. “And now we’re just going to whisk that away from her because some guy decides he wants to be a female and he kind of wants to win the gold medal.”
He provided no examples of such behavior in Shawnee, or Kansas, or anywhere else, because he can’t. It’s absurd to believe a young person contemplating the extraordinary lifetime challenges of a gender transition would undergo the procedure just to win a footrace at a high school track meet.
It’s equally ridiculous to think a boy would undergo a gender change procedure just to use the girls’ restroom. Yet so-called “bathroom bills” have been the darling of the right in legislatures across the nation.
Evidence and logic aren’t really the issue here. Transgender identity is on the agenda in Shawnee, and in the Kansas governor’s race, and in cities and counties and school boards across the nation, precisely because it’s a divisive culture war touchstone, not because it has any real meaning in the lives of the vast majority of citizens.
Does anyone really believe the Kansas Legislature passed a ban on transgender children’s participation in sports because they care about kids? Of course not. They needed a polarizing issue in the campaign against Gov. Laura Kelly, and they got one.
Let’s be clear: For those facing challenges of gender identity, and their friends and family, these concerns are very real. For those fighting for acceptance of transgender men and women in society, the arguments are important.
But there are mechanisms in place for dealing with issues such as these young people’s participation in sports. The Kansas State High School Athletics Association already has a policy on transgender athletes: It leaves gender participation decisions to schools, with an appeals process.
An athlete or parent who believes a transgender student has an unfair competitive advantage can ask the KSHSAA executive board to take a look.
That seems right to us. There is no evidence the policy is unworkable, or unfair, or discriminatory. A case-by-case review by adults overseeing youth sports is vastly preferable to the incoherent musings of a council member in a city that plays no role in gender decisions at all.
We have lots of things to work on in Kansas: public education, water quality, economic growth, personal autonomy, equity and inclusion, justice. Addressing those issues will take every ounce of energy and focus we can provide.
There are procedures in place for addressing transgender children’s competition in school sports. We should use them. Then, the Shawnee City Council can return to working for all of its residents.
This story was originally published October 12, 2022 at 11:31 AM.