In his wisdom, Kansas’s legislation puts the transfer of transsexual children to all other priorities – the reflector Kansas

The first bill that Kansas’s legislation sent to governor Laura Kelly this year did not lower ownership taxes.

Does not fund education or highways. The challenge of illegal immigration was not even taken up.

Instead, it is targeted at LGBTQ+ children for harassment and abuse.

With hateful efficiency, Kansas Kamas and the Senate have accepted a breathtaking broad ban on the affirmation of gender for those under the age of 18. Like the bills that both chambers have passed in previous years, this does not make any benefits for families and healthcare providers to decide on the best course of action based on science. Instead, the bill gives the great government the power to exclude medical treatments and simple expressions of support.

I’ve written all this before. In 2022, 2023 and 2024, I wrote columns for my short -sighted, devastating, radical nature of legislation that does nothing but to encourage hatred and distinguish itself to a small minority.

The legislators who voted for these bills should be ashamed.

The legislators “chose extremist beliefs and misinformation because of the requests of the residents of Kansas, teachers, medical professionals and transgender persons,” said the CEO of the main coalition Michael Pop. “They have chosen to discriminate and hate, and transsexual youth and their families will suffer because of it.”

I want to make a simple request today. I want to challenge every Republican, every Democrat, everyone who serves in Topeka. Before you vote once again on legislation, which is aimed at transgender people and the rights of transgenic kansani, sit down and actually talk to a trance for an hour.

I’m not saying you have to change your mind or vote. But you have to sit down and actually talk to the people whose life you are trying to legislative from your existence. Talk to the people you told your colleague Kansas that it is acceptable to hate and define yourself as mentally ill.

You have to talk to them. You have to listen to them.

I have taken a trip on these issues myself. I left the closet in 1999. I was part of the group of gay students at the University of Kansas. Few transgender people were out or visible to the university community at the time. I was often rejected or ignorant of the concerns of this community. In fact, for the best part of two decades, I did not know anyone who is a transgender.

But when I moved to Kansas in 2016, through work in journalism and non -profit organizations, I began to meet and work with a number of people who were trance.

Guess what? They were just people. They were – and they are – like you and me and anyone who can see walking down the street. I learned more about their experience. I learned more about their hopes and dreams and travels they took to get to where they are today.

I think it is deeply stupid to accept laws and restrictions and restrictions on transgender people without knowing them and their lives. I think we can all take advantage of a hearing point of views that are different from ours. I do not believe this means that everyone will become ardent supporters of LGBTQ+ rights, but I would hoped that experience generates empathy.

I hope that such experiences will lead legislators and the public to act more fascinating when it comes to judging others and their lives. In the same way, many people oppose abortions but believe that the right to choose this procedure should be left to women, it is quite possible to doubt gender care and yet believe that transsexual people and Their families must have this option.

Because conservatives so common, the government should not solve everyone’s problems.

“If the Republicans wanted a clean bill for healthcare, they will have one, but this bill is not this,” says Donatan Dylan, a senior organizer at Loud Light. “They have shown that their goal is to punish Kansas children who are different and the elderly in their lives who care for them. They will not stop with Trans Kids, and every Cannes must be worried about the neglect of legislators about our right to privacy and self -determination. “

Once again: legislators will regret taking these votes. They are on the wrong side of history, and their children and grandchildren will judge them roughly. They make an anti -Human choice that will destroy life and tear families for cheap political profit. The fact that we all knew it was coming does not make it easier to bear.

They did it without actually knowing transgender people without taking the time to talk to their actual voters. And in making such widely grown decisions, without the main floor of knowledge, they conveyed their condition.

The Wirestone clay is the editor of Kansas Reflector’s opinion. Through its section of opinion, Kansas reflector works to enhance the votes of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information including how to send your own comment, hereS