The Kansas legislature has now passed a comprehensive “bathroom bill” making any person to use the facilities corresponding with their sex at birth and not allowing people to change their name or gender on government issued driver’s licenses. This of course sparked major outrage in the LGBTQ community.
In Kansas, the new legislation was passed with a two-thirds majority making the bill veto-proof. Kansas currently has a Democrat as Governor, however because the more than two-thirds of the legislature voted in favor of the bill, the Governor can’t use the veto power to stop the bill. Both chambers in the Kansas legislature are controlled by Republicans with a supermajority.
The new legislation defines a persons “sex” as “either male or female at birth.” LGBTQ community strongly disagrees with that statement and believes the rights of transgender people are being trampled. No where in the bill does it address non-binary, gender-fluid, and gender-non-conforming people which legally erases what the transgender community has been fighting for.
Kansas is one of many other states in America looking to stop the transgender agenda believing it endangers women and children. Conservatives in these states believe the commonsense need for privacy and safety for all family members outweighs what the transgender community believes.
The new bill encompasses all prisons, jails, rape crisis centers, domestic violence shelters, and “where biology, safety or privacy” are needed in situations where men and women are to be separated.
Many activists on the left have protested the legislation without success and after the bill passed, Florida’s Senate has decided to take up legislation banning minors from receiving gender reassignment surgery.
At a rally outside the Kansas Statehouse, a 13 year-old transgender boy Ian Benalcazar said, “I am what they are scared of. I am a human being and I deserve to be treated as such, and I deserve to be happy.”
According to Kansas House Health Committee Chair Brenda Landwehr, “This will protect women’s spaces currently reserved for women, and men’s spaces. We talk about rights. 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?”
Lawmakers in favor of the bill have proclaimed it as a “Women’s Bill of Rights” along with an additional five states.