(Originally posted by Equality Kansas to Equality Kansas News)

Greetings from the State Capitol, where the Legislature is supposed to be conducting the people’s business. We’re now more than two months into the session, winding down towards a five week break before a final, and hopefully brief, Veto Session at the end of April.

Has the 2016 Legislature accomplished its tasks? Let’s take an inventory.

Do we have a balanced budget? No.

Have we brought 330,000 business owners back onto the income tax rolls? Nope.

How about repealing the huge sales tax increase that pushes the tax burden onto the working poor? Please, what are you smoking?

Have more staff been hired at our state hospitals and prisons? C’mon, those people can continue to work double-shifts with no overtime.

Has funding been restored to our universities and public schools? You gotta be kidding.

No folks, we’re sorry to say, none of those critically important things have yet happened. Here’s what we’re doing instead: Yesterday, a pair of identical bills were introduced simultaneously in both the Kansas House of Representatives and the Kansas Senate. Neither bill has a damn thing to do with actually helping solve the massive problems confronting our state. What fresh hell, you ask, are we now in?

Bathroom bills. Two of them. Both will ban trans students in Kansas public schools from using the bathrooms that align with their gender. Trans girls will be forced to use the boys’ bathroom. Trans boys will be forced into the girls’.

As written, these bills will provide special “accommodations” through allowing trans kids to use “alternative” facilities. The backers of this bill call this “privacy,” but the actual consequences will be to “out” and isolate trans kids who are just trying to do what we all do: Go to the bathroom. Instead, they will be subject to additional isolation, harassment, bullying, and potential injury.

But wait, there’s more. These bills will also apply to adult college students, no matter their age, no matter their surgical status. This bill strikes close to home. Equality Kansas’ vice-chair and former board chair, Stephanie Mott, is currently finishing her Master’s degree at a Kansas university. Stephanie is transgender, has been repeatedly denied an amended birth certificate, and as such will be forced into men’s restrooms.

You can see the bills and their full history on the Kansas Legislature’s website.

House Bill 2737: http://kslegislature.org/li/b2015_16/measures/hb2737/

Senate Bill 513: http://kslegislature.org/li/b2015_16/measures/sb513/

This is a pair of incredibly bigoted, shortsighted, and dangerous bills. We don’t know when – or if – there will be hearings, but we will be watching very carefully and working in the statehouse to stop these bill from moving. When we have an indication of their future, we will send immediate action alerts. If you want to start making calls and sending emails now, check your House and Senate rosters for legislative contact information at http://kslegislature.org/li/b2015_16/chamber/senate/roster/ and http://kslegislature.org/li/b2015_16/chamber/house/roster/

Watch this space.

Thomas Witt, Executive Director

Equality Kansas

witt@eqks.org

800 N. Market St | Wichita, KS 67214

(o) 316-683-1706 | (m) 785-220-2355

Our mission is to end discrimination

based on sexual orientation and gender identity.