As Kansas nears gender care ban, students push university to advocate for trans youth

LAWRENCE, Kan. — With Kansas on the verge of banning gender-affirming care for minors, college students are trying to counter Republican efforts to roll back transgender rights by pushing the state’s largest university to declare itself a haven for trans youth.

The Republican Party-controlled Legislature on Wednesday approved the proposed ban on puberty blockers, hormone treatments and surgeries for minors, apparently requiring two-thirds majorities in both chambers to override an expected veto from Democratic Governor Laura Kelly. Kansas would join 24 other states in banning or restricting gender-affirming care for minors, the latest of which was Wyoming last week.

But the week before — when a ban already seemed likely — the student senate on the University of Kansas’ main campus overwhelmingly approved a proposal to add the transgender rights policy to the school’s student rights code. The proposal asks administrators to affirm students’ right “to determine their own identities,” direct staff to use their preferred names and pronouns and commit to updating students’ records to reflect their gender identity display. Administrators have not formally responded.

The university’s hometown of Lawrence, between Kansas City and the state capital Topeka, already has a reputation for being more liberal than the rest of the Republican-leaning state. But students involved in the transgender rights proposal said there is now an urgent need to show that the university will advocate for LGBTQ youth, despite a legislature they view as hostile.

“The people in charge have made the decision to support some things that are really cruel, unnecessary and unjustifiable,” Jenna Bellemere, a 21-year-old transgender senior, said of lawmakers. “It is the students and the younger generation who need to step up and say, no, we are not okay with that, and fight against it.”

Republicans in Kansas have been part of a multi-year and nationwide effort by Republican lawmakers to roll back transgender rights. Last year, they overrode Kelly’s vetoes of measures that ended the state’s legal recognition of transgender residents’ gender identities and banning transgender women and girls from female grassroots and college sports.

Six months ago, lawsuits by conservative Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach forced Kelly’s administration to stop changing the entry for “sex” on transgender people’s birth certificates and driver’s licenses.

Chris Raithel, a non-binary junior at the University of Kansas, was among those who have been working on drafting the Student Senate proposal since last fall. Their goal was not to create a confrontation between the university and the legislature that could fuel an austerity response, they said, “but we do think it would be a great service to the trans students at the university if these protections were to apply. university policies and students would ensure they are understood and protected.”

Republicans have pushed for a ban even as trans youth, families and medical providers in Kansas opposed it. The move also goes against the recommendation of major US medical groups, although England’s National Health Service recently said that puberty blockers and hormone treatments for minors would no longer be routinely covered.

Senate President Ty Masterson, a Republican from Wichita, described his chamber’s approval as a strong stand against “radical transgender ideology.”

Several doctors are among lawmakers supporting the Kansas measure, arguing it protects children from potentially irreversible medical treatments with long-term health effects.

“The bias, as some people call it, is based on fear – fear of the unknown – and there is still a lot we don’t know about what we are getting into, especially when it comes to minors,” the Republican state representative said. John Eplee, a physician from the northeastern corner of the state. “This is not meant to be hateful or hurtful.”

Republican Senator Mark Steffen, an anesthesiologist and pain management physician from central Kansas, suggested the proposed ban would protect “troubled children” from “wayward parents and a wayward health care system.”

Republican lawmakers approved a proposed ban last year but failed to override Kelly’s veto. This year, supporters saw a net gain of twelve votes in the House of Representatives to reach the necessary two-thirds majority there.

In the Senate, supporters were one vote short last year, but they got it Wednesday from Republican Sen. Brenda Dietrich of Topeka, a former local school superintendent. She switched because backers this year added a provision that would give doctors until the end of the year to take patients off puberty blockers or hormone treatments.

Dietrich’s voice trembled as she explained her decision to colleagues Wednesday evening, saying it was a difficult vote. She said she worried about the potential harm if the treatments were suddenly stopped, but she has always agreed with people in her Republican-leaning district, who are “overwhelmingly” opposed to gender-affirming surgeries for minors.

“Their anger at doctors and parents who allow surgery on children is palpable,” she said.

Even proponents of the ban have acknowledged that doctors in Kansas perform few gender-affirming surgeries on minors. Young transgender adults have said in interviews that they first went through months — sometimes several years — of therapy, puberty blockers and hormone treatments.

And critics of a ban said the provision allowing a gradual withdrawal of treatments that reduce the risk of suicide, while potentially medically better than an abrupt end, does not prevent harm to the physical and mental health of transgender youth.

“Minors and their families already face significant emotional turmoil as they deal with these hateful bills year after year,” Amanda Mogoi, a Wichita nurse who has provided such treatments for eight years, said in an email. “They won’t want to stop taking their life-saving medications.”

Although the measure would only ban treatments for people under 18, the students behind the University of Kansas proposal still see it as a threat to them, in part because they don’t expect Republican lawmakers to stop it. During the House debate Wednesday, House Health Committee Chairman Brenda Landwehr suggested that Kansas should consider expanding the ban to people in their early 20s.

“If I could ban this until a child’s brain is fully developed, I would do it in a heartbeat,” said Landwehr, a Republican from Wichita.

Bellemere said that even without a broader ban, doctors could stop treating young transgender adults for fear of lawsuits or other legal problems.

Another transgender student at the University of Kansas, Raine Flores-Peña, a junior and LGBTQ+ rights activist who works at the school’s Center for Sexuality & Gender diversity, said some friends who transferred to other colleges after Kansas lawmakers ended the state’s legal recognition of their gender identity. But he began his transition after moving to Lawrence in 2018 and describes himself as very stubborn.

“I don’t want to be evicted from my own home,” he said.