The so-called “Fairness In Women's Sports Act” sponsored by the Kansas Committee on Federal and State Affairs attempts to legitimize transmisogyny through gender essentialism that misuses biology to validate patriarchy.

The bill goes into in-depth discussion on physical characteristics, claiming that cisgender men have features that make them superior to cisgender women, and draws false comparisons between cis men and women who are trans, in an attempt to ban trans girls and women from sports.

Excluding trans girls from participating in sports has negative outcomes for all youth. It invites a policing of all bodies and reproduces patriarchal concepts of toxic masculinity that associate femininity with fragility, claiming that women need men to save and protect them.

The misinformed notion that girls who are transgender have an ‘advantage’ because of testosterone levels, ignores the double standard of how 10 percent of women have polycystic ovarian syndrome (which elevates testosterone levels) but they still allowed to play sports, researcher Jack Turban explains in the Scientific American.

“Transgender girls on puberty blockers, on the other hand, have negligible testosterone levels. Yet these state bills would force them to play with the boys,” researcher Jack Turban writes.

The proposed act gives cisgender students the power to sue schools that allows trans athletes to participate. It also gives schools the power to sue if their team competes with a team that has trans athletes, and safeguards anti-trans policies by not allowing government entities to challenge the ban.

This attempt to gatekeep womanhood rather than centering narratives by women with different lived experiences, is dangerous and unscientific.

The harm created by this bills extends far beyond the field – 85 percent of transgender and nonbinary youth said that their mental health was negatively impacted by last year’s record-breaking legislative attacks on their identities.

There is no equity if gender is defined by patriarchal systems that are designed to restrict everyone, regardless of their gender identity. There is no equity without trans women. These bills are an attack on all youth, women and sports.

KS SB 208 has carried over from last year’s legislative sessions.