With this change, Kansas becomes the 27th state to implement laws limiting transgender procedures for minors.
The Kansas legislature, led by Republicans, has voted to override Governor Laura Kelly’s veto on a bill that prohibits gender-reassignment surgeries for minors. This move establishes Kansas as the latest state to impose restrictions on transgender surgeries and procedures aimed at children.
Republicans, having supermajorities in both legislative chambers, effectively exceeded the two-thirds majority needed to overturn the Democrat governor’s veto. The Senate
passed the bill with a vote of 31–9, followed by the House which voted 84–34 on February 18, thus enacting Senate Bill 63 (SB 63), known as the Help Not Harm Act.
This legislation forbids healthcare professionals from administering puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and gender-reassignment surgeries to minors who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria. The law is set to take effect later this month and eliminates state funding for transition-related procedures, also putting the medical licenses of doctors who continue to offer these services at risk.
Governor Kelly, a Democrat,
vetoed the bill on February 11, asserting that it infringes on parental rights and cautioning about potential economic repercussions. “Infringing on parental rights is not acceptable, nor is it a Kansas value,” she stated at that time. “This legislation could lead to families, businesses, and healthcare professionals leaving our state, thereby harming our economy and worsening our workforce shortages.”
In a
joint statement, Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson and House Speaker Dan Hawkins indicated that they acted “in the name of the children whom Governor Kelly failed to safeguard with her repeated rejections of this reasonable legislation.” They characterized gender-altering procedures for minors as “harmful, irreversible, and experimental,” declaring the veto override a “success for common sense.”
This action by the Kansas legislature is part of a broader national campaign initiated during the Trump administration to limit gender reassignment procedures. Recently, President Donald Trump issued an
executive order halting federal support for such procedures, describing them as “chemical and surgical mutilation” that contribute to a “dangerous trend” and represent a “stain on our nation’s history.”
Additionally, Trump signed another
executive order asserting that the United States will recognize only two sexes—male and female—and that these are “not changeable and are based on fundamental and irrefutable reality.”
“Across the nation, ideologues who reject the biological reality of sex have increasingly employed legal and other socially coercive methods to allow men to self-identify as women and access intimate spaces and activities reserved for women, from domestic abuse shelters to workplace facilities,” Trump’s order emphasizes. “This is unjust.”
The ACLU criticized Trump’s order mandating recognition of only two sexes, labeling it as “requiring discrimination against transgender individuals across a significant portion of federal government.”
