Sen. Beverly Gossage, seen during a Jan. 17, 2024, Senate session, defended legislation to ban gender-affirming care for children. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
By Sherman Smith, Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — Senate and House Republicans voted Tuesday to override Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of legislation that bans gender-affirming care for minors, rejecting pleas from Democrats to turn attention instead to issues that would help Kansas families.
Republicans used their dominance in both chambers to summon the two-thirds majorities needed to override the veto with votes of 31-9 in the Senate and 85-34 in the House. The unscheduled votes caught Democrats off-guard.
Senate Bill 63 prohibits health care providers from providing surgery, hormones or puberty blockers to children who identify as a gender that is different from the sex they were assigned at birth. Health care providers who break the law will be stripped of their license.
It also prohibits the use of state funds for psychological treatment for transgender children, bans state employees from promoting “social transitioning” and outlaws liability insurance for damages related to gender-affirming care.
A national anti-LGBTQ+ group called Do Not Harm drafted the model legislation, which is billed as the “Help Not Harm Act.”
Kelly responded to the veto override by saying it was “inappropriate that the Legislature dictate to parents how to best raise their children.”
“It is unfortunate that the first bill the Legislature sent me this session is focused on putting politicians between Kansans and their private medical decisions instead of prioritizing solutions to issues like rising prices and the cost of groceries, which would benefit everyone,” Kelly said. “This divisive bill will undoubtedly have ripple effects that harm Kansas families, our businesses, and our economy and intensify our workforce shortage issue.”
House Democrats complained about not being given advance notice that they would debate and vote on the veto. When Rep. Susan Ruiz, a Shawnee Democrat, called the move “cowardly,” she was reprimanded by Rep. Blake Carpenter, a Derby Republican, not to impugn other members of the House.
Ruiz called the bill “egregious and cruel,” and said it wouldn’t help kids or families.
“We should all be enraged about this,” Ruiz said. “This is wrong on so, so many levels. I know certain people don’t care. They don’t care about these kids. All they care about is control — that somehow the Legislature has the right to interfere in people’s bodies.”
Two Republicans — Rep. Mark Schreiber, of Emporia, and Rep. Bob Lewis, of Garden City — initially voted with Democrats to support the governor’s veto. Lewis later corrected his vote and supported the veto override.
Schreiber said he had received feedback from families who were thankful that he previously voted against the bill.
“They’re frustrated, they’re scared, and they were amazed that somebody stood up and recognized them,” Schreiber said.
He also had a request for his colleagues. Schreiber said he was concerned the term “radical gender ideology” had been used “quite a bit” during earlier debate on the bill.
“When we use that, we kind of imply that this is a choice that these kids have or have made,” Schreiber said. “But you know, ideologies are taught. We’ve taught capitalism, we teach communism, we teach Catholicism — these are all ideologies. But we don’t teach kids to have cancer, we don’t teach them to have birth defects, and we don’t teach them to have a medical condition called gender dysphoria.
“So if you can refrain from using that, I’d appreciate it. Of course, you don’t have to, but I think it would show some kindness toward those families and those children that have that medical condition.”
Four Democrats and two Republicans were absent from the House vote.
The Senate overrode the veto along strictly party lines.
Sen. Cindy Holscher, an Overland Park Democrat, referenced testimony from supporters of the bill who described gender-affirming care as a means of “destroying God’s most basic plans.”
“I would contend that millions of people destroy those plans daily,” Holscher said. “Individuals who wear glasses or contacts destroy God’s plan to be vision impaired. Individuals who color their hair or get treatment for baldness destroy God’s plans to be, let’s say, follically challenged. Males who use forms of erectile dysfunction treatment are destroying God’s plans for them to not be sexually active.”
She drew a comparison between gender dysphoria and children born with a cleft palate, and questioned the ignorance of Sen. Beverly Gossage, a Eudora Republican who championed the bill.
Gossage’s response: “Cleft palate is not a mental disorder. It’s a medical condition.”
Holscher also said the bill “does nothing to address the concerns of Kansans.”
“Our constituents want us to make life more affordable for them,” Holscher said. “This bill does nothing in that regard. It doesn’t make child care more affordable, it doesn’t make wages better, it doesn’t lower property taxes or make health care more affordable. This bill just divides and distracts.”
Sen. David Haley, who supported the ban when the Senate passed the bill last month, hemmed and hawed about his override vote until Senate President Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican, ordered him to make a decision. Haley pleaded for more time than the rules allow to explain his vote.
“You will cast your vote or you will shut your mic off,” Masterson said.
Haley joined the other Democrats in the failed attempt to sustain the governor’s veto.
This story has been updated to reflect that Rep. Bob Lewis, R-Garden City, corrected his vote to support the veto override, changing the vote total in the House to 85-34.
This article was republished with permission from the Kansas Reflector. The Kansas Reflector is a non-profit online news organization serving Kansas. For more information on the organization, go to its website at www.kansasreflector.com.
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