TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas is banning transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports from kindergarten through college, the first of several possible new laws restricting the rights of transgender people pushed through by Republican legislators over the wishes of the Democratic governor.
The Legislature on Wednesday overrode Gov. Laura Kelly’s third veto in three years of a bill that applies a ban to school teams and club sports, and came a day after lawmaker passed a broad bathroom bill. Nineteen other states have imposed such bans on transgender athletes, most recently Wyoming.
The Kansas law takes effect July 1 and is among several hundred proposals that Republican lawmakers across the U.S. have pursued this year to push back on LGBTQ rights. Kansas lawmakers who back the ban are also pursuing proposals to end gender-affirming care for minors and keep transgender people from using restrooms in line with their gender identities.
The measure approved by lawmakers Tuesday not only would prevent transgender people from using public restrooms, locker rooms and other facilities associated with their gender identities but also bar them from changing their name or gender on their driver’s licenses. It is among the most sweeping proposals of its kind in the nation, and Kelly is expected to veto it.
“It’s a scary time to be raising a trans child in Kansas,” said Cat Poland, a lifelong Kansas resident and mother of three who coordinates a Gay-Straight Alliance at her 13-year-old trans son’s school in a small town about 40 miles (65 kilometers) northwest of Wichita. “We may face the very real threat of having to move, and it’s heartbreaking.
The ban demonstrates the continued clout of religious conservatives nationally, reflected in a statement in the 2022 platform of the Kansas Republican Party: “We believe God created man and woman.” The measures also reflect many Republicans’ beliefs that their constituents don’t like the shift toward acceptance in American culture.
“I wish it was 1960, and, you know, little Johnny’s a boy and Mary’s a girl, and that’s how it is, period,” Republican state Rep. John Eplee, a 70-year-old doctor, said during a committee discussion of a bathroom bill this month. “It’s not that way at all anymore, and it’s getting a little more confusing all the time.”
LGBTQ-rights advocates says its part of a national campaign from rightwing traditionalists to erase transgender, non-binary, gender-queer and gender-fluid people from American society.
Speaker of the House Rep. Dan Hawkins, a Republican from the Wichita area, championed the override as extending Title IX protections.
"The Fairness in Women's Sports act protects the rights of female athletes in the state by requiring that female student athletic teams only include members who are biologically female," Hawkins said in a statement. "House Republicans are united in our commitment to defending the intention of Title IX.
"We proudly stand with the female athletes across Kansas in their pursuit of athletic awards, opportunities, and scholarships and believe they deserve every chance at success afforded to their male counterparts."
Alex Poland, an eighth-grade cross-country runner who hopes to play baseball next year, said he thinks legislators are pursuing “bills against children” who “haven’t done anything to harm anyone” because they don’t know many trans people.
Alex, who went with his mother to lobby for trans rights at the Statehouse last week, said it’s important for trans kids to be allowed to play on teams associated with their gender identities.
“It’s good for their mental health, and usually in my experience, most of the kids don’t care and don’t say anything,” Alex said, adding that it’s mostly adults who “care so much about what the trans kids are doing.”
The first state law on transgender athletes, in Idaho in 2020, came after conservatives retrenched from the national backlash over a short-lived 2016 bathroom law in North Carolina. In Kansas, conservatives’ biggest obstacle has been Kelly, who narrowly won reelection last year after pitching herself as a political centrist.
Conservative Republicans in Kansas fell short of the two-thirds majorities in both legislative chambers needed to override Kelly’s vetoes of the transgender athlete bills in 2021 and 2022. But this year, the House voted 84-40 to override her veto, exactly what supporters needed. The vote was 28-12 in the Senate, one more than a two-thirds majority.
Last year’s elections were crucial to the result. In the historic western Kansas cowboy town of Dodge City, Jason Goetz, who works for a home construction company with a Christian cross in its logo, unseated an incumbent in the GOP primary who voted against overriding Kelly’s veto in 2022.
In announcing his candidacy in June 2022, Goetz said his mission was “to bring a biblical worldview” to the Kansas House. Six days later, he posted: “PROTECT GIRLS SPORTS!”
“It was a pretty clear-cut issue in the community,” Goetz said last month after the House initially approved the bill, adding that it’s a priority among his constituents.
Also crucial was a Democratic legislator’s decision not to seek reelection last year. Freshman Rep. Marvin Robinson replaced a fellow Kansas City Democrat who vote against overriding Kelly’s veto last year. Robinson initially voted against the bill last month but voted Wednesday to override Kelly’s veto.
Across the U.S., supporters of such bans argue that they keep competition fair. Track and field last month barred transgender athletes from international competition, adopting the same rules that swimming did last year.
Supporters argue that they’re also making sure cisgendered girls and women don’t lose the scholarships and other opportunities that didn’t exist for them decades ago.
“Over the past 50 years, females have finally been able to celebrate our differences and create a division that enabled us to achieve athletic endeavors similar to our male counterparts,” Caroline Bruce McAndrew, a former Olympic swimmer and member from the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame from Wichita, testified to lawmakers.
LGBTQ-rights advocates acknowledge that arguments about competition resonate outside Republicans’ conservative base because of the longstanding assumption that men and boys are naturally stronger than women and girls.
They’re also frustrated that the debate often focuses on whether transgender athletes have or can win championships.
Hudson Taylor, a three-time All-American collegiate wrestler said youth sports should be about learning discipline and other “healthy habits,” as well as having fun and getting support from friends. He founded and leads the pro-LGBTQ group Athlete Ally.
“There’s been a professionalization of youth sports over the last 40 years,” Taylor said. “So often, the legislators and people who oppose trans-athlete inclusion really go directly to the most elite, top talent, Olympic-hopeful athletes.”
The Kansas measure bans transgender athletes from women’s and girls’ teams starting in kindergarten, even though sports and other extra-curricular activities aren’t overseen by the Kansas State High School Activities Association until the seventh grade.
That’s one reason LGBTQ-rights advocates are skeptical that the true issue is fair competition. Another is the scarcity of transgender female athletes.
The state association said three transgender girls competed in sports in grades 7-12 this year, two of them seniors.
During a recent Zoom news conference, Taylor said transgender athletes in college likely number only between 100 and 500, based on how few children overall keep competing in high school and college. The NCAA says about 219,000 women play collegiate sports.
The international ban from track and field doesn’t actually affect a single transgender female athlete.
Cathryn Oakley, senior counsel for the Human Rights Campaign, said when a state enacts a law against transgender athletes and there’s no backlash, lawmakers feel they have permission to pursue “even more outrageous” proposals.
Cat Poland, the Kansas mother with a trans son, said: “They just keep taking the next, the next step, the next step, until where are trans people supposed to go? Where can they can exist to be safe and live happy and fulfilling lives?”
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