The so-called “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” which aimed to ban transgender girls and femme athletes from school sports, was vetoed by Kansas Governor ​​Laura Kelly on Friday, marking the second year the Democrat has had to prevent anti-trans sports ban in the Republican-majority state.

"We all want a fair and safe place for our kids to play and compete," Kelly wrote in the veto message. "However, this bill didn't come from the experts at our schools, our athletes, or the Kansas State High School Activities Association. It came from politicians trying to score political points."

Kelly said the bill is an invitation for boycotts by athletic associations, which are slowly attempting to address the barriers that have made sports inaccessible to trans athletes.

"It would send a signal to prospective companies that Kansas is more focused on unnecessary and divisive legislation than strategic, pro-growth lawmaking," Kelly said.

Republicans have been aggressively pushing an unscientific hate that will continue to perpetuate patriarchal femininity and toxic masculinity: in line with the 238 bills attacking LGBTQI+ youth this year, Kansas’ bill came from a fear-mongering strategy that baselessly claims women’s sports is under ‘threat’ while facts reveal otherwise.

“There is no direct or consistent research suggesting transgender female individuals (or male individuals) have an athletic advantage at any stage of their transition,” according to a Sports Medicine journal reviewing 8 research studies and 31 sport policies.

Kansas’ bill attempted to give cisgender students the power to demand ‘compensation’ for playing with their transgender peers, and to get “relief” for “damages” from a school that attempts to create a safe space for trans athletes.

If passed, it would’ve let cisgender students sue schools that allows trans athletes to participate; give schools the power to sue if their team competes with a team that has trans athletes; and safeguard anti-trans policies by not allowing government entities to challenge the ban.

These bills are against science: they carry on the institutional erasure of intersex people through their unscientific claims about dividing young athletes in line with a ‘sex binary’ that has never existed.