(BPR) Kansas just passed a sweeping “bathroom bill” that will force transgenders to use the facilities dictated by their sex at birth and will also prevent them from changing their name or gender on their driver’s licenses, sparking outrage in the LGBTQ community on Tuesday.
(Video Credit: KMBC 9)
The Kansas Senate overwhelmingly passed the legislation with a more than two-thirds majority vote of 28 to 12 in the Republican-controlled body. That makes the bill veto-proof, preventing Kansas Democrat Governor Laura Kelly from stopping it. It is the final passage of an earlier House-passed version of the bill. Both chambers in Kansas are comprised of Republican supermajorities.
The legislation addresses bathrooms, locker rooms, and other facilities. It defines “sex” as being “either male or female, at birth.” LGBTQ rights advocates are screaming that it legally erases transgender people and denies recognition of non-binary, gender-fluid, and gender-non-conforming people.
Kansas is just one of a number of states where conservatives are looking to stop the transgender madness spreading across the nation, ostensibly endangering women and children. They contend it isn’t about LGBTQ rights as the left is pushing. It’s about commonsense privacy and safety for family members.
LGBTQ-rights activists, transgender people, and parents of transgender children have aggressively protested the legislation and are incensed over it. On the same day it passed, Florida’s Senate also gave the green light to a ban on gender reassignment surgery for minors.
Kansas bans transgender people from using public bathrooms of their choice https://t.co/SfGbqAVnlP pic.twitter.com/gRvcVA7IVy
— Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) April 5, 2023
“I am what they are scared of,” Ian Benalcazar, a 13-year-old Kansas transgender boy, stated during a recent LGBTQ-rights rally outside the Statehouse according to the Daily Mail. “I am a human being and I deserve to be treated as such, and I deserve to be happy.”
The legislation covers prisons, jails, rape crisis centers, domestic violence shelters, and other spaces “where biology, safety or privacy” are necessary for males and females who have to be separated.
“This will protect women’s spaces currently reserved for women, and men’s spaces,” House Health Committee Chair Brenda Landwehr, a Republican who voted for the bill, proclaimed.
Republican Kansas state representative Brenda Landwehr spoke in defense of SB-180, or the “Women’s Bill of Rights,” which defines “woman” and “man” according to sex.
Landwehr pointed out that taxpayers funded surgeries for a male convicted killer who is now being held in the… pic.twitter.com/BHctniKIs2— Women’s Voices (@WomenReadWomen) March 31, 2023
“We talk about rights,” Landwehr said on the House floor last week. “What is the rights of a woman? You are saying I have no more rights. I cannot go into a woman’s bathroom and know that a male will not walk into that bathroom. What about my rights? What about my comfort zone? What about my granddaughters, what about their rights?”
Those promoting the bill framed it as a “Women’s Bill of Rights” as at least five other states have.
Republican Senate President Ty Masterson asserted that lawmakers are attempting to protect families against men who claim to be female from using women’s facilities.
“People are starting to pay attention,” Masterson claimed.
Kansas House members notably included provisions in the legislation that requires exceptions be made for those born with chromosomes, genitalia, or reproductive organs not associated with typical definitions for males or females.
Kelly vetoed a proposed ban on transgender athletes in girls and women’s sports in March for the third straight year. That bill was meant to ensure a level playing field in women’s sports by banning transgenders from participating in them.
