Rep. Brenda Landwehr, a Wichita Republican and chairwoman of the health committee, voted Thursday to outlaw gender-affirming care for transgender children. The action did not appear on the legislative schedule. She is seen here during a Kansas House discussion on March 5, 2024. (Sherman Smith / Kansas Reflector)
TOPEKA — During Thursday’s discussion on legislation prohibiting doctors from delivering gender-affirming care, House Democrats questioned the credibility of two Republican politicians who used their qualifications as physicians to spread harmful disinformation about transgender youngsters.
During Thursday’s House Health and Human Services Committee discussion, two physicians, Rep. Ron Bryce, R-Coffeyville, and Rep. John Eplee, R-Atchison, inaccurately defined being transgender as temporary, “a mental illness,” and “a social contagion.”
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Rep. Lindsay Vaughn, D-Overland Park, expressed her wish that the committee had a fact-checker, citing the “substantial information” offered by members who are “supposedly doctors.”
“It is crucial for transgender children to be able to have these conversations with their parents and their medical providers and to be given evidence-based care, which gender-affirming care is,” Vaughn said in a statement. “And for this Legislature to claim that they know more than all of the doctors, parents, and professionals who agree that this is safe, medically required, and evidence-based, I believe is really troubling. It also has the potential to hurt genuine children in Kansas.”
Rep. Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita, chaired the committee and took action on the bill without providing public notice, just one week after ejecting top transgender advocates from Kansas and giving a wide berth to out-of-state supporters. On Thursday, the committee merged the contents of House Bill 2791 into Senate Bill 233 and sent the bill to the full House for consideration.
If passed, the rule will prohibit doctors from utilizing surgery or puberty blockers to treat youngsters whose gender identification does not correspond to their sex. It would also prohibit state personnel from encouraging or assisting in “social transitioning,” which is defined as using preferred pronouns or a “manner of dress” of the opposite gender. Another provision of the measure would attempt to prohibit transgender-supportive rallies from the Statehouse grounds.
Landwehr responded to the concerns she received following last week’s hearing. In social media comments on Kansas Reflector coverage, she is referred to as “Gestapo Mary,” a “deplorable bigot,” “an absolute horrible person,” “that monster,” and other less polite epithets.
“Since the hearing, the things that I have been called have been despicable,” Landwehr stated at the time. “I can tell you that I do not hate. I may not agree with your way of life, but I do not despise you.”