Republican legislators in Kansas approved a plan early Friday to end gender-affirming care for transgender youth, capping a week of intensifying efforts to rolling back LGBTQ rights like other states with GOP-controlled legislatures.
The Kansas House voted 70-52 to pass a bill requiring the state’s medical board to revoke the licenses of doctors who provide gender-affirming care to minors, even though many professionals who deal with transgender youth see such care as vital to preserving their mental health and preventing suicides. The Senate then voted 23-12 to approve the measure, sending it to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly.
The governor is expected to veto it, having promised LGBTQ youth during a Statehouse lobbying day last month that she would protect their rights and reject any measure “that aims to harm or discriminate against you.” Supporters were well short of the two-thirds majorities in both chambers needed to override a veto.
LGBTQ-rights advocates believe they’re seeing a national effort to erase transgender, non-binary, gender non-conforming and gender fluid people from American society, at least legally. Dr. Beth Oller, a family physician in a small northwestern Kansas town who provides gender-affirming care, saw GOP lawmakers going “in search of a dog whistle” to unite their party.
“This one was a winner because they found it palatable to strip rights from a population that was small and did not affect most of them,” she said in an email Thursday night. “They delude themselves with groupthink so that they can pretend this isn’t about hate but about protection, but we know the truth.”
