Republican lawmakers in Kansas enacted arguably the most sweeping transgender bathroom law in the US on Thursday, overriding the Democratic governor’s veto over the measure without a clear idea of ​​how their new law will be enforced.

The vote in the House was 84 to 40, giving supporters just the two-thirds majority they needed to override the government. Laura Kelly’s action. The Senate vote on Wednesday was 12/28 and the new law goes into effect July 1.

At least eight other states have enacted laws banning transgender people from using the restrooms associated with their gender identity, but most apply to schools. Kansas law also applies to locker rooms, jails, domestic violence shelters, and rape crisis centers.

If I go out in public, like in a restaurant or on campus or whatever, and I have to go to the bathroom, there’s bound to be a little voice in my head that says, “Am I being harassed for my job?” “That? said Jenna Bellemere, a 20-year-old transgender student from the University of Kansas. It just makes it so much more complicated and risky and unnecessarily difficult.

Republican lawmakers argued that they are playing on people’s concerns about transgender women sharing bathrooms, locker rooms and other spaces with cisgender women and girls. They repeatedly promised that the bill would prevent that.

Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Republican from Wichita, told GOP colleagues after the vote that the override really was the icing on the cake among Conservative policy victories this year.

I’m just dizzy, he said.

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Kansas law is different

than from

the laws of most other states in that it legally defines male and female based on the sex assigned at birth and states that distinctions between the sexes should be made in bathrooms and other areas

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the important government objectives” of protecting “health, safety and privacy. Earlier this week, North Dakota passed a law barring transgender children and adults from accessing bathrooms, locker rooms or showers in dormitories of state-run colleges and correctional facilities.

Kansas law does not create a new crime, does not impose criminal penalties or fines for violations, and does not even specifically say that a person has the right to bring a lawsuit against a transgender person using a facility that has been matched on their gender identity. Many supporters acknowledged before it was over that they hadn’t thought about how it will be administered.

The bill is written broadly enough to apply to separate spaces for men and women and, Kelly’s office said, could prevent transgender women from participating in state programs for women, including for women hunters and farmers. As written, it also prevents transgender people from changing the gender markers on their driver’s licenses, though it wasn’t clear if that change would happen without a lawsuit.

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Critics of the new law believe it is an attempt to legally erase transgender people while refusing gender fluid, gender non

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conforming and non-binary people. They argued that the bills’ vagueness will lead to harassment of transgender people.

The lack of clarity is intentional because it allows them to reject the worst possible interpretation while allowing for the worst possible outcome,” said Micah Kubic, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, which opposes the law. used to be.

When she vetoed the bill, Kelly suggested it was discriminatory and said it would hurt the state to attract businesses.

The new law is part of a wider push from Republicans in the US to roll back LGBTQ+ rights, particularly transgender rights. At least 21 states, including Kansas, restrict or ban the participation of transgender female athletes in female sports. At least 14 states, but not Kansas, have restricted or banned gender-affirming care for minors.

Kansas’s new bathroom law takes its language and title from the rights of three national anti-trans women groups.

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One such group, Independent Women’s Voice, said the new law will prevent judges, unelected bureaucrats and administrators in Kansas from unilaterally redefining the word woman to mean anyone who identifies as a woman.

Under the new Kansas law, legal sex means biological sex, either male or female, at birth, “although intersex people can make accommodations if their circumstances are considered disability under U.S. law. Intersex people may have ambiguous external genitalia at the birth or conditions involving external genitalia that do not match a person’s sex chromosomes.

The new law states that at birth, women have developed a reproductive system to produce eggs, while men have developed one to fertilize the eggs.

Supporters said they expect most school districts, cities and counties are already compliant with the new law in how they handle gender-segregated spaces. Nor do they expect local officials to actively monitor who uses which toilets.

Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson, a Republican from the Wichita region, said he expects police to intervene if there is any form of harassing behavior, “but transgender people will still use facilities related to their gender identity if they are discreet about it.

He compared the new law to existing decency laws, but in Sedgwick County, the home of Wichita, Dist.

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j. Marc Bennett, an elected Republican, said that in general, if a law does not list “explicit elements for a defined crime,” then the elected prosecutor “would have no enforcement powers.

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Proponents and critics alike suggest the new law will immediately trigger lawsuits if anyone has a complaint about how local officials or even businesses are handling transgender use of facilities.

Brittany Jones, policy director for the conservative Kansas Family Voice, which supported the bill, said the law will come into play as officials and courts deal with conflict.

It would be if the cases happen, Jones said.

Still, critics believe the new law will lead to harassment not only of transgender people, but also of non-binary, gender fluid, and gender non-conforming people.

Tomboys, people who just don’t like femininity as a woman, they can’t express themselves freely without fear of being called out and removed from the spaces where they rightly belong,” said Adam Kellogg, a 19-year-old transgender student from the University of Kansas.

Former state representative Stephanie Byers, the first elected transgender lawmaker from Kansas who now lives in Texas, predicted legal chaos to come in her former home state.

While the attack on trans people isn’t physical, Byers said, they’re taking us out in every way possible.