Emporia State University professor claims parents should have the right to transition their children

Political science professor at Emporia State University Michael Smith had an opinion piece published in The Topeka Capital-Journal on Friday, June 9, 2023, bashing the Kansas Legislature over women and child protection bills.

In his opinion piece, he states that trans people and “parents of trans kids” are packing up and leaving for other states where they can feel “safe.”

“Some said they appreciated their own local community and did not want to leave, but felt they must evacuate before things get even more unsafe at the state level,” Smith wrote.

As a professor of political science, he should understand that people being able to pack up and move to a different state that fits their needs better is actually a good thing. That is literally why we have the 50 states. Our country was designed by our Founding Fathers to have each state be its own little “country” if you will. They were meant to experiment with different laws to not only reflect the values of that group of people, but also see which laws worked best, and should the laws work well, other states eventually adopt them, but no other state must adopt them. That’s why state laws are different in each state.

Of course, he could have made the argument that people leaving hurts the economy, but he doesn’t.

He does provide a few examples of the legislation he is talking about, however, including “transgender Kansas girls” no longer being allowed to play girls’ sports, trans Kansans soon to be prohibited from changing their sex on drivers’ licenses and other state documents, as well as trans Kansans being prohibited from using bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.

While I do agree that keeping adults from changing their sex on their DLs and other state documents is a bit of an overreach and absolutely not on my radar of important issues, I do think there needs to be some sort of legislation when it comes to the bathroom issue. I will say, however, that I do think the bathroom legislation is way too broad as there are so many trans people that you can’t actually tell are trans, and it does become a nuanced issue that I think needed more discussion and considerations than what the Kansas Legislature had.

He goes after the ‘Fairness in Women’s Sports Act’ by stating:

“More thoughtful, carefully crafted policies had already been in place. For example, the Kansas State High School Activities Association regulations included the requirement that, “Gender identity of the student must be bona fide and not for the purpose of ‘gaining an unfair competitive advantage.’”

“They also recommended that gender identity on school registration records, medical documentation and possible unfair advantages of changing gender be reviewed before any decision is made about sports participation. Legislators decided they knew better and replaced these with an inflexible ban.”

This is fine, except, as everyone now knows, government schools are not the most honest when it comes to issues regarding a child’s gender, so I don’t believe they are really trustworthy to make these sort of decisions, and they only have themselves to blame for losing such trust. So, yes, a law was necessary, and if you actually read the law, there’s really no overreach to it. It only focuses on competitive, government-funded sports. Furthermore, according to the bill, the Kansas State High School Activities Association and the state board of regents and the governing body for each municipal university, community college and technical college will have to adopt “rules and regulations” to “implement the provisions” when it comes to designating sports teams based on biological sex of student athletes. So, they still have a say on the issue to a point. It’s a pretty mild, commonsense bill.

He does mention that the Kansas Legislature almost banned “gender-affirming health care for trans youth,” which, honestly, I would have traded the bills that did pass that he mentioned for this bill as I think it’s the most important one for protecting Kansas kids from the dangers of the trans/queer ideology.

Smith further states that a Kansas couple who both “identify as gender nonbinary” have decided to purchase firearms and learn to shoot instead of relocate as they “no longer have faith in the states to provide even reasonable protections against hate crimes.”

First, I’d like to point out the argument that he is making for the second amendment, which I greatly appreciate. Second, my question is… what hate crimes? He doesn’t provide any examples of recent hate crimes that have been committed. Furthermore, hate crimes are not legal and as someone who is gay, I don’t see violence toward LGBT people being legalized any time soon, nor have I ever observed any hate crimes toward LGBT people in Kansas, including myself. I’m not saying hate crimes don’t exist, they very much do, but the likelihood of them occurring—even to trans people—is extremely low, despite the left’s narrative.

He goes onto defend “gender-affirming care” for children, claiming that the Kansas Legislature is all about parents’ rights up until it comes to a parents “right” to provide their child with irreversible, gender reassignment surgeries.

“Like any medical procedure, gender-affirming care requires the consent of a parent or guardian for anyone under 18 unless they have been emancipated, which is rare,” Smith writes. “Apparently, these parents do not have rights. Some politicians have called them child abusers. In other states, it has been suggested that they lose custody or even face criminal prosecution.”

He does admit that some kids do change their mind, though he states that that’s rare, despite the fact that the data is still being collected on that issue, so we can’t really be honest by saying that it’s “rare.” We can only state that we’re still collecting data on this growing issue—and it is growing.

What we do know is that their is an active reddit page specifically for detransitioners/desisters and self-questioners created in 2017 with nearly 48,000 members at the time of this publishing. For comparison, the left, who insist trans people are being hunted down, have started claiming their is a “trans genocide” occurring. While, of course, any number of people losing their lives is tragic, we do need to be honest with the statistics. The reality is that fewer than 50 trans and “gender non-conforming” people “died by violence” in the U.S. last year, and numbers from other previous years have been similar. So, which one seems rarer?

He ends his opinion piece saying that in order to protect parents’ rights, we need to “acknowledge the painful truth” that things have gotten to the point that trans and gender non-conforming people are moving away or arming themselves for protection. What he doesn’t acknowledge is the painful truth that kids are being indoctrinated into a harmful ideology of self-hatred by queer activists and getting transitioned behind the backs of parents on their own tax dollars.