Kansas Governor's Veto of Transgender Sports Ban Upheld by State Lawmakers
Twitter.The legislation, Senate Bill 16, would have barred "students of the male sex" from playing on public school and college sports teams designated for women or girls.
Proponents of the bill have described it as fairness measure, preventing athletes born biologically male to have an advantage in women's sports.Kelly vetoed the bill earlier this month, saying in a statement that it "didn't come from the experts at our schools, our athletes, or the Kansas State High School Activities Association.
It came from politicians trying to score political points."The Kansas Senate voted to override the veto earlier this week, but there wasn't enough support in the House."The case has already been convincingly made by doctors, scientists, professional athletes that women need a category in nearly every sport to compete with fairness," state Representative Susan Humphries said during the debate Thursday. "Fairness is what this bill is about."But Democratic state Representative Stephanie Byers, the first openly transgender person elected to the Kansas Legislature, said in a speech on Thursday the bill was crafted with bad information and wasn't written with fairness or athletics in mind.She said there is "maybe one trans girl in all of Kansas that is trying to participate in athletics.""If this is about athletics, then we address the Kansas State High School Activities Association's policy, and we sit down and say, 'how can we fine-tune this to make this more fair?'" said Byers.
