Viewpoint: Kansas Got This One Right

 Kansas legislators got it right. The Kansas legislature got the necessary two-thirds supermajority needed to overturn Governor Laura Kelly’s veto of a bill that requires Kansans to use public restrooms that correspond to their sex.

  What was this bill that the transgender community says endangers the entire transgender community? What was the slice of legal pie that has one 13-year-old transgender boy proclaiming that he deserves to be happy? What was this bill that Governor Kelly of Kansas warned would chase businesses from wanting to do business in Kansas?

  The Republican passed law simply says that the legal definition of “male” and “female” is based on the bio[1]logical sex at birth for purposes of single-sex spaces such as public restrooms, scholastic sports and dormitories.

  More specifically the bill defined the term “female” as “an individual whose biological reproductive system is developed to produce ova” and “male” as “an individual whose biological reproductive system is developed to fertilize the ova of a female.”

  The House passed the “Women’s Bill of Rights” or Senate Bill 180, in an 84-40 vote last Thursday after Democratic Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the bill last week. Last Wednesday the Senate also passed a motion to override the veto 28-12.

  There you have it. Put this in the pile marked “common sense”. Label this one “duh.” Welcome Dorothy back from the land of Oz, and to the land of sanity in government. Honk your horn and high five your neighbor.

 Kansas joins eight other states that have enacted such legislation.

  The chamber’s top law[1]makers said, in a statement, that they “stand with women and girls in Kansas and their right to privacy, safety and dignity in single-sex spaces. Trading one group’s rights for another’s is never okay.”

  Seems sensible to me, don’t you think?

  The Independent Women’s Voice, a conservative feminist organization (really? apparently the word conservative and feminist can go together in the same sentence) praised the vote.

  “The Kansas Women’s Bill of Rights will prevent judges, unelected bureau[1]crats, and administrators in Kansas from unilaterally redefining the word ‘woman’ to mean anyone who ‘identifies as a woman,'” the group wrote on Thursday.

  Lawmakers emphasized that it is a safety issue. “By any reasonable standard, governing from the middle of the road should include ensuring vulnerable children do not become victims of woke culture run amok,” Senate president Ty Masterson responded in an official statement.

  Parents you can rest assured that, on school sponsored trips, your child will room with a child that was born the same sex, not identifies with the opposite sex.

  Boys won’t be wandering around the girls’ restroom in Kansas. They won’t be hanging out in the girls’ locker room, either.

 The GOP victory in Kansas may signal the success of similar proposals in Oklahoma, South Carolina, North Dakota and Tennessee.

  According to Politico, Riley Gaines, a former NCAA swimmer and outspoken critic of transgender athletes competing in divisions based on gender self-identification, lent her support to the measure as well.

  “Today is a huge win for Kansas women! I applaud the Legislature for their leader[1]ship and commitment to protecting the sex-based rights of women. As a woman and a female athlete, I can attest first hand to the importance of women having private spaces when safety and fairness are at risk. Now that the Women’s Bill of Rights will be Kansas law, women have clarity that when they enter a space labeled for ‘women’, biological men will not be inside.”

  Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law banning males from using women’s restrooms in schools in late March, becoming the fourth state to pass similar legislation.

  Robin Cook a medical thriller author summed it up, nicely, long before the debate began raging about who could use which restroom,

  “If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.”   

 Thanks Kansas legislators. Maybe Colorado will take note. Follow the yellow brick road.