Transgender athlete ban makes comeback in Kansas

TOPEKA, (KSNT)--- A national push from Republicans trying to ban transgender student athletes from women's sports has now circled back to Kansas, after a failed attempt to pass legislation last year.

The state's Senate Education committee held a meeting for Senate Bill 484 on Monday, where a packed room of people took turns sharing their thoughts on the legislation. Some opponents cautioned lawmakers that, if the law passes, it would have detrimental effects.

"If this bill passes out of committee, there will be no winners, only state-sponsored suffering," Representative Heather Meyer, a democrat from Overland Park, said. "Our children deserve more than this. As a mother, I am tired of repeating myself, don't do this to our kids."

Meyer is one of a couple of parents of transgender children in the audience that urged lawmakers to vote against passing the legislation. Another parent, Holly Terrill from Wichita, said the impact of the legislation is not limited to transgender girls, but also her transgender son can be affected.

"If I worry about how he's going to interpret bills that tell him he's not a human, that he's less than because he identifies differently than the sex organs he was assigned at birth, it makes me nervous," Terrill said. "It's not going to help our children, it's not going to help our young adults to feel that they are a part of the world that we are asking them to be successful in."

According to the bill, it would enact the "fairness in women's sports act" a name that most supporters have heralded as the primary motivation behind the bill. Senator Renee Erickson, R-Wichita, who introduced the bill, sided with those who say the bill would level the playing field for women's sports.

"Senate bill 484 is about fairness," Erickson said. "Fairness in athletic opportunities for girls. Nothing more, nothing less. Either you believe the science of anatomy and physiology that boys and girls are different or you don't. Either you believe these differences give boys an athletic competitive advantage, especially when it comes to strength and speed or you don't."

Dr. Mark Steffen, a Republican Senator from Hutchinson, also testified as a father of a female athlete himself, pointing to biological differences that he said, start "very early." Steffen cited numbers from a sports medicine review article published in 2020. He indicated numbers from the article, such as lean body mass being 35% more in men, and that fat percentage is 30% less. He also pointed to a "stark difference" in grip strength and lower body muscle mass.

"This is a new year... this is a new bill...the science is still the same," Steffen said.

Other supporters of the bill slammed the National Collegiate Athletic Association for lack of action.

"Women deserve a fair playing field for competition, something the NCAA has continually denied them, and has only done so when they were forced to do so," Brittany Jones, an attorney and representative for Kansas Family Voice, said.

The state's high school activities association (KSHSAA) and the Kansas Board of Regents would be in charge of how the rules are enforced. Tom Witt, Executive Director for Equality Kansas, an opponent of the bill, raised concerns about how it would be implemented.

"Basically what we're talking about is boys and girls playing kickball in kindergarten are going to be at risk or forced into genital inspections," Witt said.

Other opponents of the bill also argued that it's targeting transgender youth, keeping college students and children within the community from exercising their rights. Some opponents in the LGBTQ community spoke about their struggle with mental health, linking proposals like the bill to feelings of isolation and higher suicide rates in the transgender community.

"I did not know how I could live knowing that society hated me for who I was as someone who has same-sex attraction," Davis Hammet said. "In many ways our society has progressed on these issues. Tragically, this bill is part of an effort to undue that inclusive progress and drive more vulnerable and scared children into darkness and despair."