Far from protecting women, new law poses silent threats to transgender Kansans

Kansans rally in support of transgender rights May 5, 2023, at the Statehouse in Topeka. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

Senate Bill 180, the new law also known as the "women's bill of rights," purports to protect cisgender women. But Kansas legislators who supported it either don't understand or refuse to acknowledge that they are only protecting cisgender women against an imaginary threat while they place transgender men, women, and nonbinary people in real danger.

SB 180 provides "a meaning of biological sex" based on the body's ability to produce ova or sperm. It also limits the use of traditionally gendered spaces such as bathrooms, locker rooms and detention facilities to biological sex.

The bill initially passed the House and the Senate in early April. When Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed SB 180 later that month, the House and Senate overrode her veto, and the bill became law.

Many criticisms have been leveled at SB 180 by the transgender community and its allies, including accusations of discrimination and a narrow understanding of biological sex. However, we should also discuss how the law is overtly dangerous for transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people.

The new law has often been described as a "trans bathroom ban" because it bans transgender people from entering a bathroom that misaligns with the gender they were assigned at birth. I, for example, as a transgender man, will be legally required to use women's restrooms starting July 1. The bill claims this is a measure to ensure safety and privacy, but transgender people have never posed a threat to safety in public bathrooms.

The bill does, however, put transgender people using restrooms in danger.

Many transgender people and allies have pointed out that requiring anyone identified as biologically female to use the women's restroom means that transgender men must also use the women's restroom. Many trans men who have used hormone replacement therapy for years are large, bearded and muscular. Some who sought gender-affirming surgeries have penises. They look overtly and completely masculine.

For these men, their choices are now to use the women's restroom legally and face social backlash from anyone who objects to a bearded man entering the women's restroom or to enter the men's room and risk legal consequences. The reverse is true for trans women.

Stripping us of our ability to align our gender markers with our physical appearances forces us out of the closet and into hostile environments.

– Achilles Fergus Seastrom

A less publicized part of SB 180 restricts transgender people from changing the gender markers on their legal documents. Changing the gender marker on documents from M to F or F to M is important for transgender people because it's affirming. Like access to bathrooms, it's also a matter of safety.

In the transgender community, the ability to "pass" (in other words, to appear cisgender) affords a level of safety to some. While not every transgender and nonbinary person is able to or attempts to pass as cisgender, many feel passing is a way to protect themselves from harassment and violence. For them, aligning their gender markers with their physical appearance is paramount.

The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (the most recent until the forthcoming 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey) conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality found that 46% of respondents faced verbal harassment because of their gender identity, and 9% were physically attacked.

We can reasonably expect those numbers to rise if transgender people are forced to out themselves every time they show ID. Stripping us of our ability to align our gender markers with our physical appearances forces us out of the closet and into hostile environments.

The Kansas Legislature's dangerous, anti-trans bills are not unique in the United States. The American Civil Liberties Union is tracking nearly 500 bills across the U.S. that target members of the LGBTQ+ community. Many of these specifically harm transgender people. This legislation will pose threats to the safety, happiness and wellbeing of transgender people for years.

I’m one of the lucky ones. I knew I was transgender and came out before the United States became such a dangerous place to be transgender.

By the time I had to face these atrocities, I was secure in who I was. I was able to start hormone therapy and change my name before legislatures could construct additional roadblocks. I sent off paperwork to change my gender marker a few weeks ago, and I’m hopeful it will be processed before SB 180 takes effect.

However, there are many, many people less fortunate. Transgender youths and people newly recognizing their identities or individuals living in even more dangerous states all face difficulties I do not. SB 180 and related laws do not provide measures of safety for anyone, only new forms of danger for the minority.

Achilles Fergus Seastrom (he/him) is a transgender writer, editor and artist living in Kansas. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

by Achilles Fergus Seastrom, Kansas Reflector June 8, 2023

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Achilles Fergus Seastrom (he/him) is a transgender writer, editor and artist living in Kansas. He has served in editorial positions with multiple literary journals, including Touchstone Literary Magazine, Terrain.org and James Gunn's Ad Astra, and he writes fiction and nonfiction about environment, queerness and justice. His creative essay on colonial farming and heritage is forthcoming in Symphony in the Flint Hills’ 2023 Field Journal. Achilles shares his home with a greyhound and a guinea pig. The trio are moving to Iowa in the fall, where Achilles will begin an MFA in creative writing at Iowa State University.