New Kansas bathroom law likely to harm mental health, increase risks for trans people, experts say

Republican Rep. Charlotte Esau says during a Jan. 28, 2026, debate on Senate Bill 244 that women who have been assaulted feel uncomfortable using bathrooms where they might encounter a transgender person. There is no evidence to support the claim that the bill, which restricts bathroom use based on sex assigned at birth and is now law, makes women safer. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA — Refusing to allow transgender Kansans the ability to use the bathroom of their choice or hold documents that match their gender affects their mental health and may open them to acts of violence, researchers and doctors say.

And claims that women are safer because of restrictive laws, as proponents said during Kansas legislative hearings, aren’t supported by evidence.

The situation frustrates and worries Susan Peach, who cried last week when her daughter turned in her Kansas driver’s license to comply with the state’s new law targeting transgender residents.

“They clipped the corner of the first license,” she wrote online. “It was as if someone had clipped her wings.”

The question now plaguing this Merriam mother is where her 20-year-old daughter, Elora Peach, will go to the restroom at the University of Kansas, where she is enrolled in the five-year Legal Education Accelerated Degree Program.

Early in her transition, Peach said, her daughter was kicked out of men’s restrooms twice.

“I’m worried that if she were to walk into a men’s room, they are absolutely going to send her away,” she said. “She does not look like a man. She’s a beautiful woman.”

National experts submitted testimony last week in a Douglas County District Court case filed by two Lawrence men who are challenging the new Kansas law, which forces transgender people to use private spaces and hold state documents that match the sex they were assigned at birth.

The two men, using pseudonyms of Daniel Doe and Matthew Moe, are suing the state to stop implementation of Senate Bill 244. On Friday, the court will hear arguments on whether to issue a temporary restraining order, which would delay enforcement of the law for up to 14 days, with a possible extension of another 14 days. That would give the two sides time to prepare arguments over a preliminary injunction, which would block enforcement until the lawsuit is resolved.

 

Amy Bucher-Long of Prairie Village holds open the door to a men’s restroom during a Feb. 6, 2026, protest at the Statehouse. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

Experts in court filings

Ayden Scheim, an epidemiologist and biostatistician who is completing a systematic review on legal gender recognition for the World Health Organization, said in testimony that stigma, discrimination and violence toward transgender people is widespread.

Transgender people report “high levels of discrimination and violence,” he wrote in a 57-page court filing for the Kansas case. In a 2022 survey of 92,000 transgender and nonbinary adults, 30% reported being verbally harassed the previous year, Scheim said.

The problems are made worse by documents that don’t match a person’s outward appearance, Scheim said.

“Transgender persons experience discrimination and poor treatment due specifically to identity documents that do not accurately reflect the sex they know themselves to be and that they live as,” he said.

The 2015 U.S. Trans Survey found nearly one-third of respondents who presented an identity document that did not match their gender presentation had at least one negative experience, including verbal harassment, denial of service, being asked to leave a venue and assault.

Racial and ethnic minority responders were more likely to report harassment or violence, Scheim said.

Angela Turpin, a pediatric endocrinologist and medical director for the Gender Pathways Services Clinic at Children’s Mercy Kansas City, provided a 29-page court filing that said the impact of incongruent driver’s licenses on transgender people increases gender dysphoria.

Being transgender is not a mental health condition, she said. However, gender dysphoria, which is listed in the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual for Mental Health Disorders, occurs when someone is struggling with feeling a marked incongruence between one’s experienced or expressed gender and their assigned sex, Turpin said.

“From a medical perspective, denying access to facilities consistent with a person’s gender identity constitutes a form of social non-affirmation,” she said.

Social affirmation is an important component of treatment for gender dysphoria, Turpin said, and when transgender individuals are required to use facilities inconsistent with their gender identity, it separates them from others.

“This type of stigmatizing treatment is associated with significant psychological harm,” she said, adding that patients subjected to requirements and penalties outlined in Kansas’ new law expressed feelings of rejection, isolation, shame and social stigma.

The result is elevated rates of anxiety, depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation, Turpin said.

If the new Kansas law remains in place, transgender individuals in the state are more likely to experience diminished psychological well-being; decreased access to educational, employment and housing opportunities; and increased likelihood of harassment and violence, Turpin said.

 

Democratic Rep. Alexis Simmons says during Jan. 28, 2026, debate on Senate Bill 244 that she doesn’t appreciate Republicans using her trauma to justify a harmful law. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

No harm to women

Rep. Charlotte Esau, R-Olathe, supported the Kansas bill during House debate, saying that women who had been assaulted had told her they only feel safe in women-only private spaces.

“If they are in a place that they believe is for more than one person but only one gender, and it’s their gender, and they feel safe and they hear a male voice in the background, the trauma starts all over again,” she said. “I’ve had folks tell me they won’t go out in public, they won’t go to public pools, where they have to go to a locker room.”

Rep. Alexis Simmons, D-Topeka, disputed Esau’s argument. Simmons revealed that she had been sexually assaulted and said she never thought it was anyone else’s responsibility to manage her trauma.

“I spent years in therapy, “ she said. “I drained my savings to pay for therapy. I worked exceedingly hard to get to a place where I could do something like I am today, sharing it for the betterment of other people.”

“I do not appreciate my trauma being used to justify legislation that we know will cause harm to people,” she added.

Esau didn’t answer Kansas Reflector questions about how many women reached out to her about their concerns or how they will react to seeing and hearing transgender Kansans who look like men and have lower voices in the women’s restroom, which they are now required to use by law.

Experts who have studied the topic say there is no evidence that banning transgender people from spaces that match their gender identity makes anyone safer.

“This is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist,” said Elana Redfield, federal policy director at the Williams Institute, a University of California, Los Angeles, think tank that tracks gender identity law and public policy.

“There’s no evidence that suggests that inclusion of transgender people in bathrooms or getting ideas that are affirming leads to any kind of negative consequence,” she said.

In a February 2025 report, institute researchers studied states that enacted bathroom bills and found no change in rates of violence or harassment in bathrooms, she said.

The study found incidents of violence or harassment in private spaces like bathrooms and locker rooms were rare and, in fact, negative incidents were more likely to occur if a transgender person tried to use a bathroom that matched their sex assigned at birth.

More people were denied access or verbally harassed in the latter situation, the study said.