BY: TIM CARPENTER
Kansas Reflector
Legislation clears Senate with veto-proof majority, House vote falls short
TOPEKA — The Republian majority in Kansas Legislature sent Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly a bill Friday that would prohibit health professionals from providing gender-affirming care to individuals under the age of 18.
On final action in the House, Senate Bill 63 passed 83-35 — one vote shy of what would be needed to override a potential veto by the governor. The measure was adopted Wednesday by the Senate on a vote of 32-8 on strength of a bipartisan supermajority.
Kelly rejected a similar bill in 2024, but the Legislature’s attempt to thwart the veto failed.
Rep. Ron Bryce, a Coffeyville Republican who carried the bill Thursday on the House floor, kicked off several hours of debate by declaring the Legislature had to halt misguided medical care that promoted gender transitioning among people 17 or younger.
The bill would forbid use of puberty blockers and hormone drugs as well as surgery for minors grappling with gender dysphoria, he said. It would open the door to lawsuits against health care professionals who helped children move toward transition and forbid malpractice insurance to cover damages in those cases, he said. It would mandate state licensing boards sanction violators of the law, he said.
“Use of these treatments has increased exponentially over the past several years,” said Bryce, who has a medical degree. “This seemed to have started from the sincere belief that these treatments would prevent children from committing suicide. It was based on a desire to save the lives of children.”
He said the Help Not Harm Act was necessary because fundamentals of gender-affirming care had been disproven and the treatment wasn’t shown to thwart suicide. He asserted 80% to 85% of minors who at one point were convinced there was a mismatch between their gender identity and biological sex determination at birth eventually resolved those issues without transitioning.
“The intent of this bill is to provide proven treatment for these children who are suffering from gender dysphoria rather than following a radical gender ideology,” Bryce said.
If the Kansas bill became law, state tax dollars couldn’t be used for activities that encouraged gender transitioning. That would apply to health professionals, but might be sweep K-12 public school counselors or nurses into that net.
‘Just unbelievable’
Opponents of the bill dominated House discussion by flooding the zone with amendments crafted to soften the bill’s reach. House advocates of the bill overwhelmingly rejected those ideas. In the 125-member House, each of the amendments were crushed with 50-vote margins.
“This is just unbelievable,” said Rep. Susan Ruiz, a Democrat from Shawnee. “Let me tell you, this bill will inflict harm on children under the age of 18, physicians and other health care professionals, mental health professionals, school personnel, state employees. We have young people up in the gallery. What kind of message are we sending to them?”
Kelly, in the final two years of her second term as governor, vetoed a bill banning gender-affirming care statewide during the 2024 session. The Senate came up with the minimum 27 votes for an override last year, but the House fell two short of the required 84 votes to complete the maneuver.
In advance of this session’s House and Senate voting, committees in both chambers conducted public hearings on identical bills. Proponents argued the legislation was needed to protect children who could fall victim to wayward parents or health professionals who championed health care that was described as “experimental.” About 400 opponents of the legislation made their views known to the committees.
Attempts were made in the House and Senate to lower the age of independent medical consent by minors to 14. Both were defeated, but Rep. Stephanie Sawyer Clayton, D-Overland Park, said Republicans hostile to the amendment should consider addressing a Kansas law allowing minors as young as 15 to get married.
“If we do think that children should be getting married … and we determine that children should be giving birth, then those people of that age should also be allowed to make those decisions with their parents with regards to their care,” Sawyer Clayton said.
Age-appropriate decisions
Rep. Megan Steele, a Manhattan Republican and school nurse, said all children were unique and must be treated with dignity. In education, she said, that meant establishment of age-appropriate standards in terms of what students were expected to comprehend.
“If a 15-year-old cannot construct arguments that all circles are similar … they don’t have the brain development to agree to have their genitals surgically removed,” Steele said.
Reps. Lindsay Vaughn and Heather Meyer, both Overland Park Democrats, closed floor debate in the House with appeals for moderation in the state’s regulation of gender-affirming care. Both said legislators convinced to vote for the bill didn’t understand the people being targeted.
Vaughn said the bill soon to be forwarded to the governor would illustrate the scope of intrusive state government power and was dotted with unconstitutional provisions.
“This bill limits free speech. This bill violates the right to free expression,” she said. “This bill infringes on the right of medical providers to offer peer-reviewed, evidence-based care. This bill violates the fundamental constitutional human right of transgender Kansans to not be discriminated against.”
Meyer said there was no evidence physicians in Kansas were performing gender-transition surgery on minors.
The bill aimed the toxic forces of discrimination, hatred and misunderstanding at Kansas youth who would have dreams and hopes shattered by a statewide ban, she said.
“It is not our job as legislators to get involved in private, complex heart-wrenching medical and mental health decisions that parents and caregivers make in consultation with providers,” she said. “This bill is wrong. This bill is an egregious and heartbreaking attempt to discriminate against a small, but very vulnerable, community in Kansas.”