Kansas lawmakers hear testimony on bill regarding transitioning minors

Kansas lawmakers in the Senate Committee on Public Health and Welfare had a public information briefing regarding HB 2791 and the House Committee on Health and Human Services held a hearing for the same bill later that same day, Thursday. The bill would restrict minors under the age of 18 years from receiving certain gender reassignment services.

Senate Committee on Public Health and Welfare

Prior to the start of the information briefing, Sen. Pat Pettey (D-Johnson and Wyandotte Counties) went on record stating that the briefing for the bill was a waste of time and that she’d much rather work on expanding Medicaid.

The committee first heard from 19-year-old detransitioner Chloe Cole.

“Before I was a teenager, I fell victim to gender ideology,” Cole said. “This ideology targets kids like me. Who are different, or on the autistic spectrum, or struggling with puberty trauma and forming their identity as they grow into adults. We need to stop the medical industry from taking advantage of these kids the same way that I have been and that thousands of other children have been.”

Cole went on to say, “This abuse is standardized in health care throughout the country and the rest of the world by the World Professional Association of Transgender Healthcare, or WPATH.”

Cole also stated that she now experiences “joint, back, and pelvic pains” as well as having issues with atrophy, sexual dysfunction, and pain, and that the testosterone she was put on may have made her infertile.

“The loss of my sexual development and of my breasts has marked the loss of a major part of my sexuality and my identity as a now adult woman,” Cole said. “I never will have the option of feeding my children with what God gave me. The skin grafts that they created out of my areolas have become open wounds, and I have to bandage myself every single day.”

Jamie Reed was another proponent who spoke in favor of the bill. Reed, a lifelong Democrat with a Masters of Science in clinical research, has spent time working in a pediatric gender center in St. Louis, MO, and she admitted she was originally a “firm believer in pediatric gender medicine.” She is also a gay woman with a transgender spouse. To her, this is not a left or right issue but rather a right or wrong issue.

“In my four-year tenure their, I saw many children receive so-called gender affirming care that ended up leading to significant harms and outcomes,” Reed said. “I’m a passionate advocate for these kids and so I spoke out as a whistleblower to bring about reforms. We had patients in my tenure detransition. We had patients in my tenure have total radical mastectomies and express regret within months. I counseled patients who had vaginal lacerations due to atrophy from the testosterone who we had to send directly to the emergency rooms who then went directly into emergency surgery.”

Reed also stated that gender affirming care is “no longer considered evidence based” and that it is “increasingly clear that young people are being harmed by these interventions.” She also noted that the World Health Organization (WHO) announced last month that they will not be issuing guidelines related to transition care for children due to “limited evidence regarding the long-term outcomes of affirmative care for youth.” She further stated that her time working at a pediatric gender center showed her the necessity for State Legislators to make these laws as these centers will not reform themselves.

Co-chair for Equality Kansas Douglas County chapter Iridescent Riffel was the first to speak on the opponent side.

“Today, I want to speak about the consequences that legislation like this has when our identities are put up for debate and strips us of our humanity,” Riffel said. “When I appeared before the Legislature last year, I spoke of a teenager, Brianna Ghey, who was stabbed to death by her peers. Her peers were emboldened by anti-trans legislation and misinformation regarding her identity.”

It’s important to know that the two teenagers that murdered Ghey were obsessed with serial killers and murder and wanted to know what it was like to take a human life. They also discussed at length on WhatsApp various other children they wanted to kill and police said that Ghey being targeted had nothing to do with her being transgender.

Riffel continued, “Shortly after Trans Day of Remembrance last November, I lost a friend and fellow organizer who was shot and killed for being trans. In the last week of 2023, Amber Minor was shot and killed in Raytown, MO because of her trans identity.”

It’s important to know that Minor was found shot to death in a driveway at 8:35 a.m. on December 24, 2023 and that, according to reporting as recent as January 29, 2024, police are still investigating the case. Media outlets immediately claimed her death was due to transphobia before any information was actually known. This claim has still not been proven as little is known about her death.

Riffel continued, “Then, a little over two weeks ago, Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old, two-spirit Choctaw teenager was beaten inside a bathroom at Owasso High School in Owasso, Oklahoma by several of their peers. Nex succumbed to sustained injuries and tragically died. The violence that Nex faced perpetuated by anti-trans legislation in Oklahoma and nationwide. Chaya Raichik, the account owner of Libs of TikTok, had been appointed to the Oklahoma Library Media Advisory Committee despite not being a resident of Oklahoma. Raichik primarily targets through her social media terrorism, and she has proudly called herself a ‘stochastic terrorist’ on Twitter in the past. After news broke about Nex’s death, Raichik, now a government official, mocked Nex on Twitter and stated ‘transgenderism needed to be eradicated.’”

It’s important to know that Benedict did not die from injuries sustained from the bathroom battery, that’s just what queer activists said and media outlets ran with it. In reality, the preliminary autopsy report showed that Benedict did not die from any trauma, and police are currently waiting on a toxicology report as they’re not sure how or why Benedict died.

Amanda McCoy was the last to speak. She is a nurse and the only certified WPATH care provider in Kansas. It’s important to note that in 2022, it came out that WPATH had referenced a pedophilic forum that fetishizes the rape, castration, torture, and murder of children when working on their standards of care.

“No youth are moving forward with gender affirming care without the support and legal informed consent of all of their legal guardians,” McCoy said. “No youth are making these decisions on their own. No youth are being targeted by these organizations that support trans care.”

McCoy went on to state that harm is being caused to kids with bills like HB 2791.

“We’re causing harm to these kids who have to keep hearing over and over that they aren’t worthy to be here,” McCoy said. “To keep hearing the Kansas Legislature doesn’t care enough about these kids and their families to trust them to make decisions for their own medical care. I ask you to stop that.”

To watch the full hour of the committee meeting, click here.

House Committee on Health and Human Services

The room was packed and overflowing into the hallway when it came to hearing HB 2791. Rep. Ron Bryce (R-Coffeyville), who requested the bill for introduction, was the first to speak in favor of the bill, providing a short history lesson to go along with his testimony.

“Transgender treatments manipulate or destroy tissue or flesh in otherwise healthy bodies to treat mental problems. For the sake of comparison, I would like to draw a comparison to another historical practice. The practice of lobotomy, which was part of the mainstream care in its heyday. Like transgender treatments, it manipulates or destroys healthy tissue in order to treat mental problems.

“When I say lobotomy was mainstream, I mean the guy who developed it got the Nobel Prize for medicine and tens of thousands of Americans had lobotomies in the 1940s and 1950s. Looking back on this discredited practice, we can see there was a groupthink that developed among the lobotomists. Experts decided it was the right thing to do so people followed the experts.

“Back then, keep in mind, there was little that could be done for mental conditions. It was heart wrenching for doctors to standby and watch people suffer. What can best be called groupthink developed because the people wanted to do something—anything to help with the suffering. So, they hung their hopes on lobotomies. But the lobotomy procedure was abandoned and discarded into the ashbin of failed ideas as stronger data became available. Similarly, many are frustrated to see children suffer today. They don’t want to just standby and watch like the experts in the past who pinned their hopes on lobotomies. Experts today pin their hopes on surgical and hormonal manipulation of healthy bodies of children to treat mental health problems.”

Before he was stopped for time, Rep. Bryce noted that transgender treatments have not been proven safe or effective with no studies looking at long-term effects. He also noted that these treatments do not reduce suicide risks in gender dysphoric children, noting different countries that have come out with studies saying this including Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

Marriage and family therapist Asher Wickell was the first to speak against HB 2791.

“I’m sorry to tell you this bill is a terrible idea,” Wickell said. “Not only because it knowingly and deliberately endangers the lives of Kansas children… This bill goes beyond simply issuing a blanket prohibition on necessary, life-saving medical and mental healthcare. It restricts speech. It compels false speech. It would make it impossible not only for gender-affirming care providers, but for every licensed clinical practitioner in Kansas to practice ethically within the scope of our profession, and in accordance with the regulations and statutes already set forth for us by the state of Kansas.”

Wickell further stated, “It would have the same effect, given its provisions on state buildings and facilities for clinical educators and mental health, medicine, nursing, allied fields, which means it would threaten the accreditation of every clinical training program in every state institution of higher education. It does all of this as more than half our mental health professionals are less than ten years from retirement.”

Wickell went on to claim that the bill would kill children and would drive from practice doctors, nurses, and therapists along with constituents who would leave the state.

To watch the full hour and forty minute hearing, click here.