Kansas becomes latest state with transgender athletes ban, as lawmakers override Gov. Laura Kelly

After three years of failed efforts, legislators successfully enacted a bill to ban transgender athletes in women’s sports over the veto of Gov. Laura Kelly, joining 19 other states with similar measures.

While two Republicans legislators opposed the measure, conservatives found a key ally in Rep. Marvin Robinson, D-Kansas City, who cast the decisive vote in the Kansas House to override Kelly's veto after lawmakers were locked in the chamber for nearly an hour.

Their colleagues in the Kansas Senate followed suit hours later, overriding Kelly's veto with all Republicans but one supporting the measure.

LGBT activists, who have successfully beaten back the bill previously, called the event a dark day for the transgender community in Kansas.

Lawmakers and LGBT rights advocates have said that the bill will further marginalize transgender youth by cutting off their access to extracurricular activities and by publicly shaming them.

During the debate on the override attempt, Rep. Susan Ruiz, D-Shawnee, pointed to two LGBT youth who died by suicide following the 2022 legislative session.

"I heard from friends who knew these kids that these kids followed us, they followed our laws, they were active, not just politically but within their own communities," Ruiz said. "They look up to us and when they see us, and they look at their role models and that, if we kick down on them, they have no reasons to live."

In the wake of the House vote, tensions flared, with Ruiz saying Republican lawmakers "don't give a s---" about children over the sound of House Speaker Pro Tempore Blake Carpenter's gavel., while Rep. Heather Meyer, D-Overland Park, stood to display a shirt saying "protect transgender rights."

Advocates for the bill cheered the House's actions after three years, saying it is necessary to guard against situations seen in other states, where trans athletes have won championships.

"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," House Speaker Dan Hawkins, R-Wichita, said in a statement following the vote.

Brittany Jones, a lobbyist with Kansas Family Voice, said the vote in the House was a relief.

"We are super grateful that the Kansas House and ... the Kansas Senate have sided with women and their opportunities and work to protect those," she said. "We know it has been a long three years and we are so grateful that this has happened."

The move makes Kansas the latest state where legislators overcame a gubernatorial veto to enact anti-transgender legislation. Lawmakers in Kentucky enacted a bill restricting health care for transgender youth last week, while legislators in North Dakota were narrowly unable to overturn a veto on a more sweeping proposal.

In Kansas, the moment is significant, as lawmakers have been unable to overcome Kelly’s veto the last two years. In 2021, the Kansas Senate fell short by a single vote, the next year it was the Kansas House’s turn to come up a single vote short.

In 2023, lawmakers appeared to have a path to the requisite two-thirds supermajority to override a veto but it was contingent on a handful of GOP members absent during the first vote to support the bill and, most notably, a pair of Democrats.

Robinson has voted in support of other anti-transgender bills, though he was in opposition to the transgender athletes ban initially, and has developed a close relationship with GOP legislators, much to the chagrin of Democrats.

Speaking with reporters after the vote, Robinson said he had been threatened and cajoled by legislators and opponents of the bill.

He initially opposed the bill, he said, because he hoped there would be a compromise to find a gender-neutral space for transgender athletes to compete.

"It was all or none," Robinson said. "Then they started getting rude and insulting and threatening to take me down. My God, what do you do. I've gone through various throughlines to ask for a divine intervention on this. I'm not someone who hates anybody. We need to be trying to do that. I don't know how we do that."

Rep. Ford Carr, D-Wichita, initially voted in favor of the bill when it passed the House earlier this year. But Wednesday he flipped his vote to oppose the override attempt, saying he was sympathetic to the bill's proponents but had issues with the bill's inclusion of younger grade levels.

"I don’t believe it is fair for young men and young ladies to compete in sports where there is a definite physical and biological difference," Carr said. "However, that being said, I have issues with those small children that will be included in the bill."

Jones said she was encouraged that Democrats had broken ranks to support the bill, saying it was indicative of evolving public opinion on the matter.

"We're starting to see Democrats in the chamber wake up to the reality of these things, that the ideologies have gone so far," she said. "That bodies do actually play sports and that, in a lot of places, those matter. They are waking up to that reality and you see especially in minority populations that they aren't on board with some of the more radical elements of the LGBT community."

During a tense meeting of House Democrats prior to the vote, Rep. Stephanie Sawyer Clayton, D-Overland Park, said she had faith that Democrats would stick together.

"I get the general impression from the other side of the aisle that there is no small amount of amusement on their part at the fact that our caucus might be broken up," she said. "I was talking with some of them last night and they were laughing at our lack of unity."

Two Republicans voted against the override, Reps. Mark Schreiber, R-Emporia, and David Younger, R-Ulysses and they were joined by Sen. Brenda Dietrich, R-Topeka, in the Senate. All other Topeka-area members voted along party lines.

Several Republicans in the Senate said they voted for the bill only reluctantly.

"We don’t have a horrible problem in Kansas," Sen. Carolyn McGinn, R-Sedgwick, said.

Transgender youth fear fallout from transgender athletes ban

During the debate, Rep. Jerry Stogsdill, D-Prairie Village, said the Kansas State High School Activities Association reported only three transgender girls in after-school activities this year, though it is unclear whether they are participating in athletics or other programs, such as debate.

And KSHSAA does have policies in place regarding trans athletes, though critics say they don't go far enough.

Ian Benalcázar, a 13-year-old transgender male from Lawrence, said he competed in club sports but feared for his friends who did not.

While Benalcázar said he was fortunate to have a supportive home environment and to have known transgender and gender non-binary while growing up, he said it still took time to realize that he was transgender, which he called "the greatest discovery of my life."

Legislators, he said, did not understand how young people felt about the issue.

"They say they want to protect children but as children we are outraged," he said.

Stephanie Byers, who served in the Kansas House from 2021-22 as the state's first transgender legislator, said the events were tragically ironic given Kansas' moniker as the "free state."

"You watch them begin to curtail the rights that people have, even if it's something as simple as the right to be themselves in athletics, and to do so even though it ignores the science," Byers said. "Even though it ignores the recommendations of medical, even though they understand that it will drive an increase in suicide rates among trans youth in Kansas."

Speaking with reporters following the vote, a tearful Meyer who has a transgender child, said she had heard from dozens of constituents with trans youth in her community alone, worried about the bill and its impacts.

"F--- the haters, f--- the bigots," Meyer said.

Lawsuit threat looms over bill from ACLU, others

The threat of a lawsuit over the ban looms, with the Kansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union all but saying during legislative hearings on the matter that they would attempt to block its enforcement.

Whether that effort would be successful or not, however, remains to be seen.

In January, a federal judge in West Virginia upheld the state's transgender athletes ban in the face of a legal challenge from a middle school transgender girl who had hoped to run cross country.

But that case was quickly appealed to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who has blocked the law from taking effect. West Virginia has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to let the ban be enforced while the court proceedings play out.

Lawmakers are unlikely to stop at the transgender athletes ban, which is among a handful of anti-transgender bills being considered in Kansas this session and among hundreds of similar bills nationally.

Kelly is likely to veto Senate Bill 180, which would require transgender individuals use bathrooms and changing rooms that align with their biological sex and prevent changes of name or sex on a birth certificate or drivers' license for trans people.

Both Carr and Robinson voted for that bill as well, giving the House a pathway to the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto; the Senate also would have the requisite numbers to overturn Kelly, if no members change their position.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Lawmakers enact transgender athletes ban over veto of Gov. Laura Kelly