What kind of world is it that trans people have to beg for sanctuary in KC, Lawrence? | Opinion
Do you smell smoke? Yes, you do, and that’s because the planet is on fire. Yet too many of our GOP Kansas and Missouri electeds have elected to concentrate instead on just-for-fun matters like torturing our tiny minority of transgender people.
(“What did you do for the world, Grandpa?” “Son, I made sure that folks used the bathroom they were born with, or else were chased through the streets like criminals, hehehe.” “Oh, OK.”)
As a result, trans Kansans have to worry about the new state law, effective as of July 1, that requires transgender people to use the bathrooms assigned by their birth certificates.
Will some cavalry we don’t know about be available to enforce this regulation of who poops where, or will our God knows well-armed self-appointed militia be available to make sure nobody goes where they shouldn’t?
Because of all that could go wrong, dozens of people cried out to the Lawrence City Commission this week, begging commissioners to make the blue island of Lawrence a sanctuary city for transgender and nonbinary people.
This comes on the heels of Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas and an 11-1 majority of the City Council (Heather Hall was a no) passing a resolution telling city workers not to participate in the state-sanctioned bigotry of the multiple anti-LGBT laws Republicans in Jeff City passed this session.
That these leaders felt compelled to do that is heartbreaking.
To us, “sanctuary” evokes images of Tutsi looking in vain for shelter in the Rwandan churches where they were murdered anyway by their former Hutu neighbors.
Kansans, is this war on trans people really a door-to-door manhunt that the Free State will look back on in pride?
Missourians, is there really no more pressing issue, and no better way to spend the brief time we’re given here?
What is it we should be afraid of?
Those who came to the meeting to speak asked the commissioners in Lawrence to create an ordinance in response to the new Kansas law.
Some told the commission that they had already been chased from public bathrooms, and threatened.
Sylvie Althoff, a local trans business owner, told commissioners that as soon as the law goes into effect, she will in essence be criminalized for leaving her house.
Many speakers urged the Lawrence Police Department to adopt a policy making clear that officers would not arrest trans people for using a bathroom that the state says they can’t use.
We hope they do that.
Whatever Lawrence decides, the city’s designation as a sanctuary would be almost entirely symbolic, especially since the lawmaking supermajority in Kansas is not interested in protecting the weak from the powerful. Oh, on the contrary.
But whenever this fever breaks, and may it be soon, there will be no medals handed out to those who most harrowingly hounded the vulnerable.
