On Monday, March 21, the Kansas Senate is likely to take up SB 484, this year’s attack on trans youth.
Like previous years’ anti-trans bills we have successfully worked to defeat (so-called “bathroom” bills, sports and activities bills every year starting with 2016), this year’s attack on transgender kids targets youth as young as five. The bill, drafted and pushed by State Senator Renee Erickson and Senate President Ty Masterson, bans trans girls (not boys!) from participating in school sports at all grade levels, including Kindergarten all the way through college.
Last year’s anti-trans bill, SB 208, explicitly allowed for anyone – literally anyone – to challenge a child’s gender and demand a genital inspection. While this year’s bill removed the explicit language, it instead leaves it up to the Kansas State High School Activities Association to publish regulations on challenging a child. The cowards behind this bill know that explicitly requiring invasive medical examinations is opposed by voters everywhere so, instead of including it in the legislation, they’ve pushed it off onto a state agency to handle.
We’ll be clear: No matter how cowardly the backers of SB 484 write their legislation, it will come down to subjecting five-year-olds to genital inspections.
Simply put, SB 484 is state-sponsored bullying. This bill, along with a seemingly endless parade of anti-LGBT bills introduced every year, proves that it’s not about “protecting women’s sports.” It’s about their hatred of LGBTQ Kansans and our families. From legislation calling our marriages “shams” and “parodies” to the legislature’s refusal to repeal outdated and unconstitutional LGBT criminalization statutes, far-right extremists in Kansas are using the legal system to keep our community as perpetual second-class citizens.
Enough of the bullying. Enough of using children as political punching bags. Call and write your Kansas state senator between now and Monday (actually, do it right now!), and let them know to vote “NO!” on this latest attack on queer kids.
If you don’t know who your state senator is, use this handy lookup tool from OpenStates.org
Once you’ve located your senator, you can use the contact information provided by OpenStates, or you can find even more information on the Kansas Legislature’s senate roster.
Don’t put this off. Working together, we can save Kansas trans kids. They need us today.
