Kansas bans gender-affirming care for minors after GOP lawmakers reverse the governor’s veto

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas became the latest state to ban gender-affirming care for minors Tuesday after the Republican-controlled Legislature overrode the Democratic governor’s veto of the measure.

Kansas is the 27th state to ban or restrict such care. GOP lawmakers reversed Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto less than a month after President Donald Trump issued an order barring federal support for gender-affirming care for youth under 19.

“I just held my 16-year-old daughter, and we cried while we watched them try to erase her existence,” Elise Flatland, a Kansas City-area mother of two transgender children, said in a text message after livestreams of the votes.

The new law is set to take effect this month, and critics have predicted that doctors or parents or both will file a state-court lawsuit challenging it.

Supporters of such bans argued that they protect vulnerable children from what they see as a “radical” ideology about gender and from making irreversible medical decisions too young.

“This is a fork in the road,” said Republican state Rep. Ron Bryce, a southeastern Kansas doctor who backed the ban. “This is who we are as a people, as a state.”

The Kansas law will prohibit puberty blockers, hormone therapies or surgery for a minor to transition away from their gender assigned at birth. State employees caring for children won’t be allowed to provide or encourage such treatment — or encourage social transitioning.

The votes to override Kelly’s veto were 85-34 in the House and 31-9 in the Senate. Republicans hold supermajorities in both, and only one GOP lawmaker voted against overturning the veto.

Groups backing transgender rights immediately announced that they would provide financial assistance and other help to families seeking care for transgender youth outside Kansas.