On Friday, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) blocked a bill that would have banned care that promotes gender identity for children in the Sunflower State.
According to Kelly’s veto message on Friday, the bill “targets a small group of Kansans by imposing government requirements on them and telling parents how to best raise and care for their children.” “I don’t think that’s a conservative value, and I know it’s not a Kansas value.”
Kelly said, “The last place I would want to be as a politician is between a parent and a child who needed medical care of any kind.” In other words, the bill “tramples parental rights.”
She went on, “And yet, that’s exactly what this law does.”
The bill, called Substitute Bill for Senate Bill 233, would have made it illegal for people under 18 in Kansas to get gender-affirming care like surgery and hormone treatments. Republicans were not able to override Kelly’s veto of similar measure last year.
In a press release, Cathryn Oakley, senior head of legal policy at the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ rights group, said nice things about Kelly’s veto. “Thank you, Governor Kelly,” she said, “for seeing bills like SB 233 for what they really are: dangerous false information and attempts to target vulnerable youth in order to stir up anti-LGBTQ+ extremists.”
“Any laws that try to stop transgender people from getting medically necessary care based on the fact that they are transgender are simply discriminatory,” Oakley said. Physicians, patients, and families, not lawmakers, should decide what health care plans to use.
