Kansas Senate minority leader on recent anti-LGBTQ+ legislation: ‘It’s just filled with hate’

The Kansas state legislature continued its destructive push against the LGBTQ+ community last week, passing two bills with dangerous ramifications for queer residents.

Those bills now head to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s desk. Last year, she vetoed an anti-transgender school sports bill, and lawmakers voted to override it. Last week, the state lawmakers sent a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors to Gov. Kelly. She vetoed a similar bill last year, and the legislature did not have the votes to override it. Kansas lawmakers also passed legislation that will require age verification on websites that host content deemed "harmful to minors" – which is broadly defined and could include content on LGBTQ+ issues.

The minority leader of the Kansas Senate, Democrat Dinah Sykes of Topeka, was once a PTA president at the school her two boys attended. She won her Senate seat in 2016.

Sykes told The Advocate that both bills are sending the wrong message about Kansas, and one that the majority of Kansans do not support — especially the gender-affirming care bill.

Sykes said she’s worried a governor’s veto won’t be enough to stop the bills from becoming law.

“I have concerns because they were able to flip one of those votes that we were able to hold last year to help sustain the governor's veto,” Sykes said. “They changed a little bit of language in it so that if you are currently on hormone blockers, you have time to phase out, and unfortunately that was enough to flip this person's vote.”

Sykes says the bill is not in the best interest of children and that it is sending the wrong message, not only about the state but more directly to the state’s trans community and the nation as well.

“It’s just filled with hate and really just an ignorance toward what this community goes through,” she said. “It makes these children feel so different and feel like outcasts, and that’s just so cruel.”

Sykes said that unlike her Republican colleagues, she has done her due diligence, including talking to medical professionals at the children's hospital in the area to make sure she fully understands how decisions about transgender health care are made.

“It’s not like these kids wake up one morning and decide they want to go on hormone blockers,” she pointed out. “They go through mental health counseling as well as physicians to make sure that this is the right decision. And that their family is on board. It's a well-thought-out process with a decision that is ultimately made by the child and the family.”

This was the thrust of the debate on the Senate floor, Sykes said.

“We brought up the fact that if kids have access to gender-affirming care, it reduces the chances of suicide by 73 percent. And, you know, it just falls on the deaf ears of my colleagues,” Sykes said.

She said she wasn’t sure whether the governor would sign the bill.

The other piece of legislation that is headed to the governor’s desk, related to “pornographic” websites, seems to have many gray areas and potential unintended consequences, Sykes said.

“That’s why I had reservations about the bill, those gray areas, and who was deciding what is pornographic? Is it going to be a piece of artwork that we all agree on or is that someone is going to pick and choose?” Sykes said. “Now, I did support it in the end because as a mom I’m trying to make sure that there are some barriers if kids are playing around on the internet and looking for things; however, I believe in intellectual freedom and trust parents and teachers and kids determine what is right for them.”

Sykes pointed out that the bill isn’t targeting just LGBTQ+ sites.

“The vote in the Senate was, I think, 40 to zero because we felt it was very broad. And then the House kind of picked apart a little more of that. So I don't know where the governor will be on this one. And again, I think people will have freedom, and I do think that parents have ways to put barriers on our kids ' devices. But yeah, I don't know what the outcome will be on this one.”

Sykes said that particularly on the gender care bill, she has lost friends over her position, but that wasn’t what she was most concerned about.