Kansas legislators impose sweeping anti-trans bathroom law

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republican legislators in Kansas enacted what may be the most sweeping transgender bathroom law in the U.S. on Thursday, overriding the Democratic governor’s veto of the measure without having a clear idea of how their new law will be enforced.

The vote in the House was 84-40, giving supporters exactly the two-thirds majority they needed to override Gov. Laura Kelly’s action. The vote in the Senate on Wednesday was 28-12, and the new law will take effect July 1.

At least eight other states have enacted laws preventing transgender people from using the restrooms associated with their gender identities, but most of them apply to schools. The Kansas law applies also to locker rooms, prisons, domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers.

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Republican legislators argued that they’re responding to people’s concerns about transgender women sharing bathrooms, locker rooms and other spaces with cisgender women and girls. They repeatedly promised that the bill would prevent that.

Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican, told GOP colleagues after the vote that the override was “truly the icing on the cake” among conservative policy victories this year.

“I’m just giddy,” he said.

The Kansas law is different than most other states’ laws in that it legally defines male and female based on the sex assigned at birth and declares that “distinctions between the sexes” in bathrooms and other spaces serves “the important governmental objectives” of protecting “health, safety and privacy.” Earlier this week, North Dakota enacted a law that prohibits transgender children and adults from having access to bathrooms, locker rooms or showers in dormitories of state-run colleges and correctional facilities.

Kansas’ law doesn’t create a new crime, impose criminal penalties or fines for violations or even say specifically that a person has a right to sue over a transgender person using a facility aligned with their gender identity. Many supporters acknowledged before it passed that they hadn’t considered how it will be administered.

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