Kansas bans transgender athletes from women’s sports as Legislature overrides Kelly’s veto

When Kansas high schools and colleges return for the fall semester next year, transgender athletes will no longer be eligible to compete in girls or women’s sports.

The Kansas House and Senate each voted Wednesday to override Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s third veto of a bill banning anyone who was assigned male at birth from competing in girls and women’s sports.

In a major defeat for Kelly and the LGBTQ rights movement, the House voted 84 to 40 and the Senate voted 28 to 12 Wednesday to override the governor’s veto and enact the ban after minimal debate. The votes were just under four hours apart.

LGBTQ activists have called the bill a discriminatory act that targets vulnerable youth. While supporters say it ensures fairness, Daphne Cornelius, a Wichita Transgender woman, said the supposed advantages she would gain because she was born with male genitalia is eliminated by hormone therapy.

“We’re not here to take over the world,” she said. “We just want to live our lives, no different than you do.”

The vote represented a major win for House and Senate GOP leaders who have sought to pass the policy since 2021 but have been unable to overcome Kelly’s veto until now.

At an event in Johnson County Wednesday afternoon, Kelly told reporters the vote to override “breaks my heart.”

One House Democrat, Rep. Marvin Robinson from Kansas City, voted yes with Republicans in overriding the governor’s veto.

“I know that there are legislators on both sides of the aisle for whom this was sort of a moral values vote and I think they voted against their own moral code and values and I think that’s going to be very tough for them long term,” Kelly said when asked about Robinson’s vote.

Robinson, who originally voted no on the bill in February, told reporters he had hoped for some middle ground on the issue and was off put by the aggression from those seeking to convince him to retain his no vote.

“It was all or none,” Robinson said. “Then they started getting really rude and insulting and attacking and threatened to take me out and, my God what do you do.”

A handful of Republicans voted against the bill, but the overwhelming majority of the party rallied around the legislation.

“This is a victory lap not just for me but for all of you,” Rep. Barb Wasinger, a Hays Republican who has been one of the lead supporters of the bill, said during a Republican caucus meeting Wednesday morning.

When introducing the bill on the floor of the House, Wasinger presented it simply.

“Let’s not turn back time,” she said, referencing Title IX protections enacted in 1972 to prohibit discrimination based on sex.

Following the vote, Rep. Heather Meyer, an Overland Park Democrat whose child is transgender, stood on the House floor to display her “PROTECT TRANS YOUTH” t-shirt.

Speaking to reporters after the vote Meyer, through tears, explained that she had been up late Tuesday night with her frightened child.

“All I’m seeing is people saying they hate my child. They hate other kids like my child. They hate children and they’re not really fighting for them,” Meyer said. “It just makes me upset, and I’m tired. But I’m going to keep fighting.”

Currently, the legislation will affect three student-athletes in the state, according to the Kansas State High School Sports and Activities Association. The legislation also bans participation for transgender women at the collegiate level in Kansas.

“That says a lot. You’re picking on three kids. That has to have an effect on those kids. It has to feel like bullying and erasure,” said Taryn Jones, vice chair of LGBTQ rights group Equality Kansas.

According to the LGBTQ Movement Advancement Project, Kansas will be the 20th state to enact the policy.

The override vote comes as the Legislature is pursuing a series of anti-trans measures and as GOP legislatures nationwide target the LGBTQ community. According to a tracker from the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas 451, anti-LGBTQ bills had been introduced nationwide. On Tuesday the Senate voted to send a bill to Kelly’s desk that would ban transgender people from single-sex spaces that don’t match their sex at birth.

Advocates of the sports bill celebrated the override as a successful effort to protect female athletes.

“It’s huge for women of the state, it’s huge for their opportunities, it’s huge for just our understanding of women’s place in society,” said Brittany Jones, a lobbyist for Kansas Family Voice, a Christian conservative group affiliated with the national Family Policy Alliance. “It’s something that women have fought for since the 60s and we are building on the hard work of so many women for decades.”

The legislation is likely to face legal challenges. In written testimony, the ACLU of Kansas said earlier this session it believed the policy violated the U.S. Constitution and federal Civil Rights Act.

“The overwhelming majority of courts to consider the issue have held that discrimination against transgender students in school is prohibited sex discrimination under Title IX,” D.C. Hiegert, a legal fellow at the ACLU of Kansas wrote.

After the Senate vote, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, a Republican, pledged to defend the law if it is challenged.

“I am confident that the law will survive any challenge,” said Kobach, who has pushed for the policy for years.

In the meantime, opponents of the bill said the Legislature’s action will harm the mental health of transgender youth across Kansas, sending a clear message that they are not welcome here.

“This is an attempt to erase them out of our society,” said Rep. Susan Ruiz, a Shawnee Democrat and the first openly lesbian woman elected to the state Legislature. “These kids are killing themselves, they’re taking their own lives.”

After the vote, Ruiz stood and yelled across the House chamber at Republicans “you don’t give a s*** about children.”

Sen. Renee Erickson, a Wichita Republican who championed the Legislation, called the override a “victory for all women” in a statement released after the vote.

She credited the override in part to visits to Kansas by Riley Gaines, a former NCAA swimmer who has spoken nationwide about competing against a transgender woman.

“Women like Riley personified the trophies, placements, and championships that would have been lost by Kansas women if we didn’t pass this. Their courage and testimony — in the face of charges of hatred and bigotry — changed hearts and minds. They made today’s victory possible,” Erickson said.

Stephanie Byers, a former Kansas lawmaker who represented Wichita as the first openly transgender person in the Legislature, said the athletics bill is just the start and that she expects anti-transgender bills in Kansas to become more prevalent.

“Kansas is no longer the free state, at least not if you’re part of the transgender community,” she said.

The Star’s Jonathan Shorman contributed to this report.