Kansas has become the 27th state to ban minors from undergoing body-mutilating sex-change surgeries after the Republican-controlled state legislature overrode a veto issued by Democrat Gov. Laura Kelly.
The GOP-majority Kansas Senate voted 31-9 to override Kelly’s veto of Senate Bill 63 Tuesday while the Republican-controlled Kansas House of Representatives followed the same day with an 84-35 vote.
Also known as the Help Not Harm Act, SB 63 prohibits youth with gender dysphoria from obtaining experimental puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones, as well as cosmetic surgical procedures that mutilate functioning genital organs.
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The votes in both chambers exceeded the two-thirds majority needed to override a gubernatorial veto, enabling the measure to become law. The override vote fell along party lines in the Kansas Senate, with Republicans supporting and Democrats opposing it. Two Republicans in the Kansas House of Representatives joined all Democrats in voting against overriding Kelly’s veto.
Matt Sharp, an attorney with the religious freedom legal nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom, maintained in a statement that “Denying the biological truth that we are either male or female hurts real people, especially vulnerable children.”
“Now and always, young people deserve the loving embrace of family members who guide them toward this truth rather than be subjected to risky, often irreversible, and life-altering experimentation and drugs,” Sharp said.
“By overriding the governor’s misguided veto, the Kansas Legislature has taken a critical step to protect children from radical activists that peddle a gender ideology that sends kids down a one-way path of lifetime medicalization,” he added. “No one has the right to harm children, and, thankfully, states have the power — and duty — to protect them.”
Kansas joins over two dozen other states that have passed laws banning minors from obtaining some or all types of so-called “gender-affirming” procedures. The others are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Under the Trump administration, the federal government has taken steps to crack down on the performance of gender transition procedures on minors. Shortly after taking office last month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing a new government policy where the government will not “fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another” and “rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”
Although the executive order did not establish a federal ban prohibiting youth from obtaining the life-altering procedures, it directed the heads of federal agencies to “take appropriate steps to ensure that institutions receiving Federal research or education grants end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children.” It also seeks to exclude coverage of the procedures from TRICARE, the healthcare program administered by the U.S. Department of Defense.
Last September, 22 Republican state attorneys general sent a letter to the American Academy of Pediatrics urging the body to retract a 2018 guidance on the alleged reversibility of puberty-blocking drugs.
Citing the the “Cass Report” commissioned by the National Health Service in the United Kingdom, the attorneys general contend puberty-blocking drugs can interfere with neurocognitive development, compromised bone density and cause infertility and sterility when combined with cross-sex hormones.
Dr. Hillary Cass stated in her report that evidence supporting puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors is “remarkably weak.” In comments to media, she accused the AAP and other U.S. medical groups critical of her report of misleading the public.
The conservative American College of Pediatricians has warned that puberty blockers can cause “osteoporosis, mood disorders, seizures, cognitive impairment and, when combined with cross-sex hormones, sterility” while listing possible side effects of cross-sex hormones as “an increased risk of heart attacks, stroke, diabetes, blood clots and cancers across their lifespan.”
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
