TOPEKA, Kansas (AP) — Kansas Republican lawmakers have approved what could be the most sweeping transgender bathroom law in the US on Thursday, overriding the Democratic governor’s veto of the measure without a clear idea of how his new law will be enforced.
The vote in the House was 84-40, giving supporters exactly the two-thirds majority they needed to overturn Gov. Laura Kelly’s action. The vote in the Senate on Wednesday was 28-12, and the new law will take effect on July 1.
At least eight other states have enacted laws preventing transgender people from using bathrooms associated with their gender identities, but most apply to schools. Kansas law It also applies to locker rooms, prisons, domestic violence shelters, and rape crisis centers.
“When I go out in public, like I’m in a restaurant or on campus or whatever, and I need to go to the bathroom, there’s definitely going to be a voice in my head that says, ‘Am I going to do it? get harassed for that?’” said Jenna Bellemere, a 20-year-old transgender student at the University of Kansas. “It just makes it so much more complicated, risky and unnecessarily difficult.”
Republican lawmakers argued that they are responding to people’s concerns about transgender women sharing bathrooms, locker rooms and other spaces with cisgender women and girls. They repeatedly promised that the bill would prevent that.
Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican, told fellow Republicans after the vote that the overturn was “truly the icing on the cake” among conservative political victories this year.
“I’m just dizzy,” he said.
The Kansas law is different from the laws of most other states in that it legally defines men and women based on the sex assigned at birth and declares that “distinctions between the sexes” in bathrooms and other spaces comply.” important government goals” to protect “health, safety and privacy.” Earlier this week, North Dakota enacted a law prohibiting transgender children and adults from accessing bathrooms, locker rooms, or showers in dormitories at colleges and state correctional facilities.
Kansas law does not create a new crime, impose criminal penalties or fines for violations, or even specifically say that a person has the right to sue a transgender person who uses a facility aligned with their gender identity. Many supporters acknowledged before it happened that they had not considered how it would be run.
The bill is worded broadly enough to apply to any space separated for men and women and, Kelly’s office said, could prevent transgender women from participating in state programs for women, including hunters and farmers. As written, it also prevents transgender people from changing the gender markers on their driver’s licenses, though it was unclear if that change would happen without a lawsuit.
Critics of the new law believe it is an attempt to legally erase transgender people while simultaneously refusing to recognize gender fluid, gender non-conforming and non-binary people. They argued that the bill’s vagueness will lead to harassment of transgender people.
“The lack of clarity is by design because it allows them to reject the worst possible interpretation and at the same time allow the worst possible outcome to happen,” said Micah Kubic, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, which opposed the law. .
When he vetoed the bill, Kelly suggested it was discriminatory, saying it would hurt the state’s ability to attract businesses.
The new law is part of a larger push by Republicans in the US to roll back LGBTQ+ rights, particularly the rights of transgender people. At least 21 states, including Kansas, restrict or prohibit the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports. At least 14 states — but not kansas — have restricted or prohibited gender-affirming care for minors.
Kansas’ new bathroom law borrows language, and a title, from the anti-trans “Bill of Rights for Women” of three national groups.
One such group, Independent Women’s Voice, said the new law “will prevent judges, unelected bureaucrats and administrators in Kansas from unilaterally redefining the word ‘woman’ to mean anyone who ‘identifies as a woman.'”
Under the new law in Kansas, “sex” legally means “biological” sex, “either male or female, at birth,” although it allows accommodations for intersex people if their conditions are considered disabilities under US law. Intersex people may have ambiguous external genitalia at birth or conditions involving external genitalia that do not match a person’s sex chromosomes.
The new law states that females have a reproductive system at birth “developed to produce eggs,” while males have one “developed to fertilize eggs.”
Supporters said they hope most school districts, cities and counties are already in line with the new law in how they handle single-sex spaces. They also don’t expect local officials to actively police who uses which toilets.
Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson, a Wichita-area Republican, said he expects police to intervene if there is “any type of harassing behavior,” but transgender people will still use facilities associated with their gender identities.” if they’re discreet about it.”
He compared the new law to existing “decency laws,” but in Wichita’s home Sedgwick County, District Attorney Marc Bennett, an elected Republican, said that, in general, if a law doesn’t list “explicit elements” for a “crime, the elected prosecutor” would have no enforcement authority.
Supporters and critics alike suggest the new law will trigger court cases if anyone has a complaint about how local officials or even businesses handle transgender use of facilities.
Brittany Jones, policy director for the conservative Kansas Family Voice, which backed the law, said the law will come into play as officials and courts deal with the conflicts.
“It would be as cases come up,” Jones said.
However, critics believe the new law will lead to harassment not only of transgender people, but also non-binary, gender fluid, and gender non-conforming people.
“Tomboys, people who don’t like femininity as much as women, can’t express themselves freely without worrying about being called out and removed from spaces where they rightfully belong,” Adam said. Kellogg, a 19-year-old transgender student at the University of Kansas.
Former state representative Stephanie Byers, the first transgender legislator elected from Kansas who now lives in Texas, predicted that legal chaos is brewing in her former home state.
While the attack on transgender people is not physical, Byers said: “They are eliminating us in every possible way.”
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