A protester holds up a sign reading “transgender kids deserve, love, respect and acceptance.” Activists at the rally held the view that the newly passed legislation is discriminatory towards transgender youth.

Headline: Washburn students and Topeka community rally in support of transgender youth

On Thursday, April 13, Washburn students gathered outside the Kansas State Capitol to rally in support of transgender youth.

The event was in response to house bill 2238, the fairness in women’s sports act, passing. Among other parts of the bill, it restricts women’s and girls’ sports to only allow competitors of the female biological sex at birth. After the bill was initially vetoed by Kansas Governor Laura Kelly, the veto was overturned in an 82-40 vote on Wednesday, April 5.

Kevin Williams, a senior majoring in social work and the president of P.E.A.C.E 4 Change, a group focussed on prevention of interpersonal violence, was an organizer of the protest.

“The best outcome would be to activate young people to go out and vote,” said Williams. “We need people to show up to the polls to vote because the people in office currently are not listening to the voices of the general population, especially those of the youth.”

Williams’ idea to create the rally was doubly inspired by the newly passed law and another rally that happened for the transgender community at a similar time last year.

Last year’s transgender support rally was a response to conservative political commentator Michael Knowles’ event on campus. At this event Knowles spoke about ending “this transgenderism madness once and for all.”

Williams described the protest as a team effort with many individual organizations such as Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity, more commonly known as URGE.

On Thursday, April 6, URGE had a separate response to the legislation where their members used chalk to write messages outside of Memorial Union in support of the transgender community.

In the view of some protestors, the newly passed legislation was not truly about fairness in sports.

“It’s all about the control for those that don’t want to conform to society,” said Bridget King, the incoming president of P.E.A.C.E 4 Change and a freshman majoring in social work. “If you do the research, there’s three transgender kiddos in Kansas that play sports.”

In the legislative session to overturn the bill’s veto, this statement was echoed by democratic representative Jerry Stogsdill.

“I checked yesterday with the Kansas High School Activities Association,” said Stogsdill. “I checked with them about two months ago and I asked him how many students are registered with your organization. Two months ago it was 92,000 and there were three boys transitioning to girls and eight girls transitioning to boys.”
Although the event was in response to political issues concerning transgender people, some attendees had a message of acceptance, particularly for transgender youth.

“I hope any trans students who show up today feel supported and loved and know that there are people within our state who want them to be who they are,” said Olivia Higdon, a Washburn alumni and first year student at Washburn Law.

As for achieving legislative change, Higdon encourages contacting legislators to express concerns for issues such as the problems with house bill 2238.

“That’s how we do changes: contacting your representative and the more people who contact them, the more they’re going to move.” Higdon said.

For the activists at the rally, the main idea was letting trans youth live independent of overbearing legislation on their lives.

To read the text of the bill, click here.

To read about last year’s pro-transgender rally, click here

To read Washburn Review’s coverage of URGE’s protest, click here.

To watch the legislative session to overturn the bill’s veto, click here. Jerry Stogsdill’s quote was said here.

Edited by Christina Noland and LeSha’ Davis