TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas Republicans and Democrats agree that concerns about the economy drove voters to support President Donald Trump by a 16% margin.
They also know the ads of Trump and others aimed at transgender rights it resonated with voters. So while Kansas Republicans say property tax cuts are a top priority, they’re also pushing to ban them taking care of gender affirmation for young people, including puberty blockers, hormones and, rarely for minors, surgery. They say this also resonates strongly with voters.
“It carries a lot more emotional weight,” said Republican state Rep. Ron Bryce, a physician from southeast Kansas. “We are talking about children and our future.”
With lawmakers now in session in many states, Republicans are emboldened by GOP electoral success to continue pushing state bills to curtail transgender rights.
As in 2023 and 2024, dozens of bills are pending in mostly red-state legislatures, including whether transgender people can use bathrooms in public buildings, whether transgender people can use their gender identity on driver’s licenses, and whether or not transgender people can. girls can play on girls’ sports teams. In Texas alone, Republicans have introduced more than 30 measures.
They are Democrats taking into account the reaction of the voters, without ignoring it what they see as a civil rights issue.
Kansas state Rep. John Carmichael, D-Wichita, said it’s hard to conclude that Kansas voters support transgender rights after Republicans picked up three state seats and two state Senate seats.
State Republicans believe they can ban gender-affirming youth care this year, after failing before, because the added Republican members will allow them to override Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto.
“Transgender people will face discrimination at the national level for four years,” Carmichael said Tuesday. “I’m sure some of my colleagues in the Kansas Legislature will try to find a way for Donald Trump to join in. He’s doing it.”
Trump, who made anti-transgender issues central to his campaign, sign executive orders On his first day in office on Monday, he announced that the federal government would recognize only two genders: male and female.
Federal prisons and shelters for immigrants and rape survivors will be segregated by sex as specified in the order, and federal taxpayer money cannot be used to fund “transition services,” which appear to cover people incarcerated in federal prisons.
In the US, about 300,000 young people between the ages of 13 and 17, or 1.4%, are transgender, according to estimates. Courtesy of the Williams Institute An LGBTQ+ research center at the UCLA School of Law. Among adults, the number is 0.5% for the 1.3 million transgender Americans age 18 or older.
At the state level, lawmakers are anticipating a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that bans protecting gender affirmation are constitutional. the court In December, he heard arguments about a Tennessee law banning gender confirmation for minors. It looked like the justices would uphold the law, although a verdict isn’t expected until the summer.
Half of voters in the 2024 election say support for transgender rights in government and society has gone too far, while 2 in 10 say it’s about right, and a similar share say it hasn’t gone far enough, according to AP VoteCast. .
Voters were divided on at least one specific proposal. The AP VoteCast found slightly more than half of voters opposed laws banning gender-affirming medical treatment for transgender minors, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy, while slightly more than half were in favor.
At least 26 states have banned or restricted gender-affirmation care for under-18s.
Harleigh Walker, a 17-year-old transgender high school senior in Alabama who has been denied custody, said it’s shocking that states are considering legislation that hurts voters like her. He said the South is likely for college, and his family is considering moving as well.
“We’re not hurting anybody,” Walker said in a phone interview. “Our existence and our right to health care, to use the bathroom, etc., does not harm anyone.”
All major US medical groups, including the American Medical Association, have opposed the bans and said gender confirmation treatments may be medically necessary and supported by evidence. Doctors, parents and youth say this care reduces depression and suicidal thoughts in transgender youth.
Conservatives, however, describe surveillance as potentially harmful. Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins said lawmakers are trying to protect young people.
“Children under the age of 18 do not have the knowledge or maturity to make a decision that affects their lives forever,” he said in a newsletter earlier this month.
LGBTQ+ rights advocates fear the next step is cuts to adult care. Florida it is the only state that has done this, there have been proposals in at least two other states.
Mo Jenkins, a 25-year-old transgender woman who ran unsuccessfully for a Texas House seat in Houston last year, called it a scary prospect. Her state banned gender-affirmation care for minors in 2023.
“He would never stop with the kids,” she said.
Debates among red-state or swing Democrats reflect memories of Trump’s “for them/them” and “President Trump is for you” ads that blasted vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
Democratic Kansas state senator Cindy Holscher focused her campaign on education and taxes in wealthy Kansas City neighborhoods, garnering 61% of the vote.
“Democrats tend to want to lean on those social issues, but they’re not necessarily the issues that win,” he said.
Holscher, Carmichael and other Democrats say they will still oppose measures that curtail transgender rights.
“Civil rights are in the DNA of Democrats,” said Joan Wagnon, former chairman of the Kansas Democratic Party, state legislator and mayor of Topeka.
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DeMillo reported from Little Rock, Arkansas and Lathan reported from Austin, Texas. Associated Press writer Kimberly Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama contributed to this report.
