Majority Rule Does Not Preclude Transgender Minority Rights
Our founding fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, supported minority rights (at least on paper, if not completely in action). Therefore they supported the rights of the transgender community.
Instead of 'I’ve always been this way,' I think: 'I have always been becoming who I am right now.' - Johnny Blazes
All kids should be supported in their growth as a human being, in discovering who they are. In Kansas, though, one group of kids has been targeted every year for the last several years to prevent that.
And once again in Kansas, along with many other states, we’re seeing anti-transgender bills making their way through the legislature. Two are particularly egregious, each designed to attack multiple groups and institutions with one bill. Unfortunately, this year they’re more likely to override the governor’s veto as a result of the GOP having increased its supermajority last November. That increase, along with the larger backdrop of the Trump administration’s bigoted, anti-transgender executive orders and actions, also seems to have emboldened them to be extra cruel.
SB 76 was given the oh so catchy title of Requiring employees of school districts and postsecondary educational institutions to use the name and pronouns consistent with a student's biological sex and birth certificate and authorizing a cause of action for violations therefor. Though I guess it’s at least descriptive of the bill’s dastardly intent, including an overly broad damages clause where vaguely defined violations could simply be reported by a third party claiming they overheard a conversation.
The bill as a whole is designed to directly attack a) public schools and higher education institutions and their employees who show the smallest degree of support for a vulnerable student population, as well as b) transgender youth by stripping away their rights to privacy, safety, self-determination, and free speech. The bill has had its hearing in committee (with vastly more opponent testimony, including my own, than proponent testimony). I am unsure if it’s been voted out of committee yet, but it will likely eventually makes it way to the governor’s desk.
Even worse is SB 63, though honestly at some point you really can’t distinguish between the various sources of stench in a pile of garbage sitting in the sun after a week or so). And it even has the catchier title of:
Enacting the help not harm act, restricting use of state funds to promote gender transitioning, prohibiting healthcare providers from providing gender transition care to children whose gender identity is inconsistent with the child's sex, authorizing a civil cause of action against healthcare providers for providing such treatments, requiring professional discipline against a healthcare provider who performs such treatment, prohibiting professional liability insurance from covering damages for healthcare providers that provide gender transition treatment to children and adding violation of the act to the definition of unprofessional conduct for physicians.
And that’s the short title.
As you can tell from the title, this bill bans gender affirming healthcare for minors and bans state buildings and employees (including public school district employees) from promoting social or medical transition (vaguely defined). It callously attacks transgender youth (and essentially the whole transgender community), their parents and guardians, public school and higher education employees, and healthcare providers.
There was also an essentially identical house version of this bill (HB 2071). Both committees held hearings on their respective bills. In each case, I believe there were around 10 pieces of proponent testimony, several from individuals out of state and paid to testify (they do this nationally). Contrast that with the over 400 pieces of opponent testimony submitted - all from Kansans - all non-paid. Testimony came from transgender youth, family members, medical professionals (including those with actual expertise in gender affirming care), social workers, teachers, and more. All powerful, informative, and heartfelt. You can listen to the testimony for HB 2071 in the House Health and Human Services Committee below (the longer hearing of the two).
The hearing for SB 63 occurred here if you’re interested. For HB 2071, I want to point out the testimony from Dr. Angela Turpin, at the 1:24:15 mark. She’s our son’s endocrinologist, and she’s a brilliant and caring doctor. If you want an expert’s opinion on gender affirming care in our state, listen to her.
As with SB 76, I submitted written testimony from the perspective of a former school board member and the parent of a transgender child. While he’s over 18 now, our son could still lose access to gender affirming care if enough providers close shop out of fear. We’ve already seen some hospitals pause providing services for minors in reaction to Trump’s executive orders. If our son were to lose access to gender affirming care (and that IS the intent of bills like this), then we would have to seriously consider moving to another state (also the intent of bills like this).
Despite all of the hate, fear, and ignorance wrapped up within this bill, despite the vast amount of opponent versus proponent testimony, both versions easily passed out of committee (on a partisan vote of course). The Senate’s version easily passed on the Senate floor (on a partisan vote of course). And making it’s way over to the House, it easily passed on the House floor (on a partisan vote of course). Democrats obviously spoke out against the bill. They offered many amendments in an attempt to make it less bad. And obviously each amendment failed.
And throughout there was hardly a peep from Republicans. Except for the bill’s introduction in committee and the basic speech from the carrier of the bill on the floor of each body, there was little from Republicans extolling the bill’s so-called virtues. There was little from Republicans refuting the damning indictments by their Democratic colleagues and those submitting opponent testimony. And why would they? It’s a highly controversial bill. They have a supermajority. Behind the scenes, leadership is no doubt doing a lot of arm twisting of moderate Republicans with any qualms.
And frankly, it’s not a good look to stand up on the floor of the House or Senate and verbally attack a vulnerable minority. Most Kansans, after reviewing the details of the bill, I believe would see it as bullying and erasure, interpreting the “help not harm” part of the bill’s name as actually protecting bigotry and a narrow Christian, patriarchal, hetero- and cis-normative view of the world at the expense of a vulnerable group of kids. There’s no need to contribute to any potential negative attention if the bill’s going to pass anyway.
Republican silence has extended to correspondence (at least that’s been my experience). I emailed committee members prior to their committees’ vote. I emailed all Representatives and Senators prior to the votes in each chamber. As you would expect, many Democrats responded. Only one Republican Senator responded, one who’s historically been a moderate, simply acknowledging receipt of the email.
As expected, our Democratic governor vetoed the bill, and the GOP controlled legislature will likely take up the veto this week in an attempt to override it. They easily have the numbers to do so, though there’s a small chance enough House Republicans who haven’t sold all of their soul could show courage and sustain the governor’s veto. I made one last attempt to email legislators before the veto override (below) - a plea from a parent.
Again, crickets from the Republicans. Except for one House Representative, who is not a moderate. His reply was a lame, callous attempt at sarcasm. So lame (in my opinion) that I wondered if it was actually an email intended for someone else that he accidentally sent to me. This started a chain of emails that at first weren’t very productive as you might imagine. As many Republicans are doing right now, he claimed the voters gave them the majority, and majority rules as our founding fathers intended (everyone else’s concerns be damned, I guess).
Setting aside arguments that elite capture and minority GOP rule already exist (here are a few examples),
setting those arguments aside, it’s pretty easy to show that our founding fathers did NOT subscribe to unfettered majority rule WITHOUT consideration of minority rights. As pointed out by the Annenberg Classroom, while there are obviously tensions, majority rule is both endorsed and limited by the supreme law of the constitution, which protects the rights of individuals. Tyranny by minority over the majority is barred, but so is tyranny of the majority against minorities. Thomas Jefferson, in his first inaugural address, stated the following:
All... will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect and to violate would be oppression.
This bill (as well as SB 76) violates the rights of the transgender community. It is oppression by the very words of Thomas Jefferson himself.
And, so I smugly packaged this in an email response back to the Representative. He promptly responded by completely ignoring the points I had made, choosing instead to distract from the issue at hand. He referenced all the good he’s done in his life, helping kids along the way, and that I was just some elitist sitting in an ivory tower throwing stones.
As I said above, the email chain started off fairly unproductive.
But for some reason we kept the chain going. And at some point it transitioned. He started respectfully asking actual questions about the bill’s impacts. I respectfully answered him. We started sharing personal stories. At some point we both seemed to start seeing each other as human beings.
Per our last set of correspondence (yesterday afternoon) he wouldn’t confirm voting to sustain the veto (at least yet), but he did promise to review my testimony and others, and to reach out with additional questions. He promised to really think about it more than he had been.
Now, do I completely trust the genuineness of this interaction. Not yet, especially since I’m lacking the visual and audio cues that would help me evaluate his intentions. Could he be stringing me a long? Perhaps. I don’t know the man, but based on some previous reports in the news media, I would say that’s possible. But, as far as written correspondence goes, it’s the first sign of bagging the garbage that I’ve seen personally.
I have let my representative (who is a Democrat) know about this interaction. Perhaps some additional one-on-one conversations with legislative colleagues could help swing him to sustaining the veto. And I believe there is an organized effort today making calls to Republican legislators with the intent of having some heartfelt conversations.
The chances of success are still probably low, but genuine, one-on-one conversations are likely our best hope for sustaining the veto (and I would guess that’s why the GOP leadership is probably discouraging that). A lot of research from the behavioral sciences would agree with this assessment. Such conversations can have a powerful impact in turning a faceless foe, an other, into a recognizable human.
And in turn, maybe then allowing all of our kids to grow into who they want to be.
These attacks on trans people, especially kids, aren't only about them. It's about reinforcing a social movement that narrows gender to stereotypical definitions of male and female that privileges males. We all lose under this social movement. Trans people lose the first and lose the most. But we all lose