It isn’t political courage for Kansas lawmakers to attack transgender children
There’s an odd silence on the floor of the Kansas Legislature as state senators and representatives vote peoples’ rights away. Observers may mistake this silence for solemnity, but it is actually shame.
I’ve been told it had happened three times in recent history. First, in a bid to deny LGBTQ people the right to marry. A second time was when the Legislature stripped public school teachers of due process rights. Then it was preventing LGBT couples from adopting children and building families.
It happened for a fourth time earlier this month during a vote on a bill that would ban transgender girls from affirming their identities through sports. These bills are perfectly on-brand for Kansas, but they don’t have to be.
Some in our Legislature have made a conscious decision to bully children in the name of virtue, to beat their chests as though such behavior requires moral courage. Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson said as much when he declared, “Our girls are not for sale.” Well, I can tell you as the first out, trans member of the Kansas Legislature — one of fewer than ten state lawmakers in the nation — that this odious zombie bill that keeps dying and coming back to life certainly isn’t courageous. It is cowardice.
Want to see courage? Visit a high school and sit down with a trans student watching Masterson and others hijack all of the levers of power in the state in an effort to deny these kids’ humanity. I’m a retired teacher and during my career, I’ve taught trans children. They exhibit more courage simply heading into school daily than lawmakers such as Masterson and state Sen. Renee Erickson ever have demonstrated.
Moral courage? Try showing up as a fully authentic trans person in a state where Fred Phelps seemingly sets the political agenda. Try managing the trauma of confronting this current torrent of bills openly declaring opposition to your very existence. Or in my case, try passing colleagues in the halls of the Capitol, riding elevators together, sitting next to each other in committees doing the work of the people of Kansas only to have those very same people introduce bills attacking who you are.
The hate from these bills may be merely implied, but the hurt is explicit. No, we don’t need moral courage from our state’s Republican leadership. What trans kids do need, however, is the affirmation all children enjoy.
I told a state Senate committee this session that trans kids thrive when we affirm their identity. The emotional exhaustion of hiding who you are in a world that goes out of its way to demonstrate that you are not welcome takes its toll. But affirmation helps to relieve the anxiety and depression that too often leads to suicide.
Our mere presence seems to provoke some lawmakers. Why else would they elevate these bullying bills to epic priority status over other demonstrably more pressing issues? Not Black infant mortality. Not racial injustice. Not health care. Not helping women reclaim their place in the economy that COVID-19 forced them out of. No. Masterson wants Kansans focused on five trans student athletes.
Our nation has attempted this kind of erasure before. The government placed bounties on my ancestors — Native Americans. It confined Japanese Americans during World War II. It declared Africans property. These were systematic attempts at erasure and in each instance, our nation came to regret those decisions.
That shame-driven silence I encountered in the Kansas House chamber likely will veil this latest effort. While Democratic colleagues have stood with me, giving space for me and my fellow LGBT legislators to speak out, the other side has mainly been silent, except for the day after, when they come to me and, in essence, ask for forgiveness. They know these bills are fundamentally unjust.
What we, the opposition, are saying as contemptuous bills like these wend their way through the Legislature, is that courage is not about clinging to the wrong side of history by purveying unjust acts. It is risking everything to stand against such acts. This bill reeks of cowardice, and we won’t stay silent about it.
Stephanie Byers represents District 86 in the Kansas House of Representatives.
This story was originally published May 26, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "It isn’t political courage for Kansas lawmakers to attack transgender children."