Kansas Governor's Veto of Transgender Sports Ban Upheld by State Lawmakers

Legislation banning transgender student athletes from girls' sports in Kansas has again been blocked after legislators couldn't muster enough votes to overcome the governor's veto of the controversial bill.

The Kansas House on Thursday voted 81-41 to override Governor Laura Kelly's veto of the Fairness in Women's Sports Act, falling just shy of the 84 votes needed to meet the two-thirds override threshold. The vote was a rare victory for opponents of the legislation after more than a dozen Republican-leaning states enacted similar bans.

"Compassion wins today," Democratic state Representative Brandon Woodard, Kansas' first openly gay legislator, wrote on Twitter.

The legislation, Senate Bill 16, would have barred "students of the male sex" from playing on public school and college sports teams designated for women or girls. Proponents of the bill have described it as fairness measure, preventing athletes born biologically male to have an advantage in women's sports.

Kelly vetoed the bill earlier this month, saying in a statement that it "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."

The Kansas Senate voted to override the veto earlier this week, but there wasn't enough support in the House.

"The case has already been convincingly made by doctors, scientists, professional athletes that women need a category in nearly every sport to compete with fairness," state Representative Susan Humphries said during the debate Thursday. "Fairness is what this bill is about."

But Democratic state Representative Stephanie Byers, the first openly transgender person elected to the Kansas Legislature, said in a speech on Thursday the bill was crafted with bad information and wasn't written with fairness or athletics in mind.

She said there is "maybe one trans girl in all of Kansas that is trying to participate in athletics."

"If this is about athletics, then we address the Kansas State High School Activities Association's policy, and we sit down and say, 'how can we fine-tune this to make this more fair?'" said Byers. "If this is about fairness, then what is the policy and the procedure for a trans girl to sit down and say, 'I have the right because I don't possess any type of biological advantage'?"

Fifteen Republican-led states have passed restrictions on transgender athletes, according to the Movement Advancement Project.

But a handful of Republican governors have vetoed similar bills. Indiana's Republican Governor Eric Holcomb nixed his state's bill, saying there wasn't enough evidence to justify it. Legislative Republicans are eyeing a veto override.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox followed suit, saying it would single out and stigmatize the state's four transgender kids participating in school sports. The Legislature later overrode his veto.

Last year, Arkansas GOP Governor Asa Hutchinson vetoed a ban, but it was later overridden by the Legislature.

Newsweek has reached out to the Kansas House Republicans for comment.