Kansas measure would criminalize care for transgender youth

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas legislation that would make it a felony for doctors to provide medical treatments that help transgender youth transition is unlikely to get a hearing, the head of the committee to which it has been assigned said Thursday.

Four conservative GOP members of the Kansas House introduced the measure Wednesday, drawing immediate and strong condemnation from the Legislature's first transgender member, its two other openly LGBTQ lawmakers and the executive director of the state's leading LGBTQ-rights organization.

It is among measures in more than a dozen state legislatures targeting transgender youth in sports or medical treatments for them. States are considering them after an executive order from Democratic President Joe Biden prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity in school sports and elsewhere sparked a backlash from conservative groups.

“It turns off the medical interventions that a parent can seek for their child,” said Democratic Rep. Stephanie Byers, of Wichita, a transgender woman who was elected last year.

Byers added: “I've known who I am since I was — before kindergarten.”

The House health committee probably will not have a hearing for the measure because it has too much other work, such as proposals for modernizing the state's mental health system, said Chair Brenda Landwehr, a Wichita Republican.

The bill would apply not only to performing surgery on transgender minors but also to other treatments, such as prescribing drugs to block the onset of puberty to prepare a child for transitioning. Under the measure, doctors could be sentenced to up to eight months in prison for “unlawful gender reassignment service" and lose their medical licenses for unprofessional conduct.

One of the Kansas measure's sponsors, rural northeast Kansas Republican Rep. Randy...