The act will disassemble existing provisions to amend state documents from one gender marker to another. In other words, once the bill takes effect on July 1, driver’s licenses and birth certificates can no longer reflect the gender identities of transgender people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With that legal rigidity, Kansas legislators can construct additional bills around such strict definitions for the purposes of exclusion in single-sex spaces. Spaces proposed in the bill include “athletics, prisons or other detention facilities, domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, locker rooms, and restrooms,\u201d making SB180 a legal foundation for the greater process of systemic separation with regard to biological sex. As the bill says in subsection six, “separate accommodations are not inherently unequal.”<\/p>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/15.png?fit=790%2C424&ssl=1\")
Additional bills codifying this separation are likely to follow. The bill’s far-reaching implications are unprecedented in the United States, but it’s far from an isolated case. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), SB180 is one of nearly 500 state-level bills directly regar<\/a>d<\/a>ing transgender people<\/a> in the 2023 legislative session alone \u2013 13 of which affect Kansans<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kansas HB2238, the congruent “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,”<\/a> also passed in a veto override on April 5 \u2013 “restricting participation on women’s teams to female students” and “providing a cause of action for violations of the act.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n Other bills currently in the Kansas House and Senate, such as SB12<\/a> and SB233<\/a>, seek to criminalize transgender healthcare for those under the age of 21. This is an escalation from existing bills in other states with similar recently-passed legislation, like Kentucky<\/a> and South Dakota<\/a>, which restrict transgender healthcare to minors under the age of 18.<\/p>\n\n\n This is a result of Kansas’ veto-proof Senate and House of Representatives. Gov. Kelly has vetoed every bill seeking to restrict transgender people thus far<\/a>, but both seats of government have a Republican two-thirds majority. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Every Kansas bill regarding transgender people has been overwhelmingly partisan, but in SB180’s history, five representatives and one senator voted against party lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the House Final Action on March 29<\/a>, SB180 only passed 83-41 \u2013 one vote short of the veto-proof two-thirds majority. In the House Motion to override Gov. Kelly’s veto<\/a>; however, Rep. Borjon and Rep. Carr realigned with their respective parties, and the previously absent Rep. Samantha Poetter (District 6; Paola)<\/a> gave the Kansas House exactly enough votes to make the difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Riley Gaines, a former NCAA swimmer and spokesperson for the nonprofit Independent Women\u2019s Voice network, wrote an open testimony in support of the bill on March 6<\/a>. Gaines discusses her famous 200-yard freestyle race with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas<\/a> as the reason for her endorsement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/5.png?resize=512%2C411\")
\n\n\n\n