Kansas City Council Votes To Become Sanctuary For Trans Health Care

Kansas Metropolis, Missouri, opted to change into a “secure haven” for transgender individuals in search of medical care this week in defiance of conservative state legislators who handed a ban on gender-affirming therapies for minors on Wednesday.

The well being care invoice, together with a statewide measure that places new restrictions on transgender ladies and women enjoying sports activities, now rests with Gov. Mike Parson (R), who is predicted to signal each.

The measures are half of a bigger effort by Republican officers nationwide to focus on LGBTQ individuals in private and non-private life.

Kansas Metropolis council members agreed by an 11-1 vote to bar metropolis personnel from punishing people who hunt down gender-affirming care or the organizations that present gender-affirming care. In addition they instructed metropolis personnel to make it their “lowest precedence” to cooperate with implementing state regulation concentrating on trans well being care.

“Kansas Metropolis authorities is dedicated to making sure Kansas Metropolis is a welcoming, inclusive, and secure place for everybody, together with our transgender and LGBTQ+ neighborhood,” Mayor Quinton Lucas (D) mentioned in a press release. “After the Missouri state legislature launched a number of payments criminalizing entry to gender affirming healthcare throughout Missouri, I'm proud Metropolis Council took motion and accepted the ‘secure have’ decision to take steps, inside our authorized energy, to guard our transgender neighborhood and anybody in search of gender-affirming care.”

The state’s gender clinics additionally occur to be concentrated in Kansas Metropolis.

Council members acknowledged of their decision that gender-affirming well being care “has been confirmed to be evidence-based, medically crucial, and lifesaving” by main medical teams together with the American Medical Affiliation, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Faculty of Physicians, the American Psychiatric Affiliation, the American Psychological Affiliation and the American Academy of Youngster and Adolescent Psychiatry.