Transgender Kansans belong here. Legislative fanatics have dishonored our state.

Transgender Kansans and their allies rally May 5, 2023, at the Statehouse in Topeka in protest of the "women's bill of rights." (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

Transgender Kansans have been through the wringer in recent weeks.

The Legislature passed an obnoxiously cruel law not just targeting bathrooms but also trans folks’ very identities. Between Wednesday and Thursday, Senate Bill 244 took effect and apparently stripped transgender Kansans of their driving privileges and ID documents. A national organization, Trans Liberty PAC, called for an emergency evacuation of the state.

I understand why. My heart and whole chest ache.

But I offered this plea to trans Kansans: Please don’t leave.

We’ve known for years that hard-right ideologues want to make Kansas a conservative sanctuary. The plan, according to Ellis County GOP chairman Adam Peters, is to make life so uncomfortable for liberal Kansans that they would move out. Kansas Reflector reported on his comments extensively in our 2023 church and state series.

“If you can make it hostile to that group of people, that small sliver of society, and have them move elsewhere, that does a huge amount to shut this down,” Peters told a group of Reno County Republicans. “It’s both sides of it: You need to attract the good people here, and you also need to make it clear to the bad people, this isn’t gonna go well for you.”

SB 244 is just one of a string of discriminatory laws meant to harass and intimidate those Kansans not infected with the parasitic brainworms endemic among legislators. If you’re OK with your neighbors, don’t think masked goons should assault innocents on the streets, have friends among the LGBTQ+ community, and like good public schools, you’re an enemy of Kansas GOP leaders.

These politicians resemble traditional Republicans the way that American Idol’s William Hung resembles a professional singer.

If extremist ideologues can make trans people feel uncomfortable enough, they can make gay people feel uncomfortable. If they make gay people feel uncomfortable enough, they can make Black and Latino people feel uncomfortable. If they can make Black and Latino people feel uncomfortable, they can make Jewish and Islamic people feel uncomfortable.

And so on. The goal? A white, Christian nationalist ethnostate.

My response? Nuts to that.

I’m not going anywhere. I don’t think others should, either. That comes with pretty big exceptions, of course. Protect your life and livelihood: Transgender people should enjoy the same safety and security as the rest of us. If your family, job or community don’t allow you to be yourself, make whatever changes you need — and can afford.

I myself left. I spent 14 years away from Kansas, first in Florida, then New Hampshire. My husband and I specifically left Florida for New Hampshire because we wanted to become parents. Discriminatory legislation dictated that change.

Ultimately, home called me back. I returned to Kansas 10 years ago this summer, and I have not regretted it.

Not because the Legislature has been kind or those in power receptive to the needs of Kansans who are different. But because with age and life experience comes a profound understanding: Place matters. History matters. My parents and grandparents and grandparents lived here. I live here. And my family has as much right as anyone else to define Kansas and what it means.

Kansas Republicans don’t even want to live in that supposed white nationalist paradise. They love coming to Lawrence — that supposedly degenerate blue dot on the state map — to eat at our restaurants, shop on Massachusetts Street and enjoy the lively cultural scene. They love all the things that queer and diverse voices bring to a community.

Some even owned homes here while representing towns hundreds of miles away. They knew a good place to live when they saw it.

Peters has every right to work at reshaping Kansas into a twisted tribute to rightwing radicalism. But everyone else has just as much right to work at reshaping the state their own way. Indeed, if they don’t, they consign the future to those who would suffocate any hint of empathy.

“Everyone else” in that sentence includes cisgender Kansans. We dominate the state’s political and social life. By supporting our trans brothers and sisters in word and deed, we can make their lives safer and sturdier.

Transgender Kansans have so much to offer. Indeed, their voyages resemble that of Kansas itself. They have fought valiantly to become their truest selves, to resist those who would force them to be otherwise. When pro-slavery zealots insisted Kansas be one thing, its brave abolitionist residents insisted that it be something else.

Kansas established its identity. Its residents fought against all odds for their freedom, to decide on the best course for their lives and the lives of their families. The state made its own rules and determined its own future. Trans Kansans have the best and truest claim to this precious legacy.

Please follow in the brave footsteps of your forebears. Speak up and step up for your rights. Thankfully, two trans men backed by the American Civil Liberties Union have already filed a lawsuit against SB 244. Though times look daunting now, and while I cannot promise immediate improvement, we will persist together.

Just know that the extremists in Topeka deserve public condemnation. Not you.

This is not their state.

It’s yours.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.