photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

Isaac Johnson, a trans man who is a member of the No SB 180 in Lawrence initiative, speaks during the Tuesday, June 20, 2023, Lawrence City Commission meeting. Johnson and more than 70 other people spoke during the meeting and urged city leaders to adopt an ordinance making Lawrence a sanctuary city safe from the effects of anti-trans legislation.

Lawrence city leaders on Tuesday heard three hours of public comment from more than 70 residents urging them to adopt an ordinance making Lawrence a sanctuary city for transgender, nonbinary and gender nonconforming folks.

A group of residents presented the Lawrence City Commission with an ordinance they’d drafted themselves that would codify protections against anti-transgender laws like SB 180, which bans transgender people from using the bathrooms and other gender-specific areas associated with their gender identity.

“We are proud to present this to you here at this meeting, and we call upon you now as our city’s elected leadership to legally protect the rights of trans Lawrencians now and into the future by passing it,” said Isaac Johnson, a trans man who’s a member of the No SB 180 in Lawrence initiative. “We understand that it is difficult to be part of governing bodies stuck in the midst of a culture war, but it is even more difficult to be a person who is viewed as innately criminal due to our gender identity or our race or our class or our sexual orientation or our nationality or any other life circumstances.”

Johnson and the other commenters were clear in their desire for city leaders to consider and pass the ordinance immediately. But Vice Mayor Bart Littlejohn, who was presiding over the meeting in Mayor Lisa Larsen’s absence, said that the ordinance had only been received by the city on Monday, and that there had to be time for a thorough discussion of it before commissioners could act.

photo by: City of Lawrence screenshot

The line for public comment extended out of Lawrence City Commission meeting room and out into the City Hall lobby for hours during the Tuesday, June 20, 2023 Lawrence City Commission meeting.

Littlejohn acknowledged how hard it was for many folks to speak out in a public forum about the issue, and he said city staff was hoping to collaborate with people like those with the No SB 180 initiative or who gave public comment at Tuesday’s meeting first before taking any formal action.

“I believe the ordinance was received yesterday, and I believe it would behoove us to go ahead and talk to each other about progressing and moving it further,” Littlejohn said. “That’s what this comment and invitation is, as well. We want to get it right, and we want to involve people in the process.”

This wasn’t the first time the Lawrence City Commission has heard calls from dozens of folks to offer more tangible protections for those who would be affected by anti-trans legislation. Just two weeks ago, about 30 commenters — many who returned for this week’s meeting — called for the same action, and they also called on city leaders to not enforce the far-reaching bathroom ban set to go into effect in July.

Local leaders like Larsen, Douglas County District Attorney Suzanne Valdez and Lawrence Police Chief Rich Lockhart in the weeks since then have all asserted a desire to oppose SB 180, including by refusing to prosecute or arrest anyone under the law. The City of Lawrence also released its own statement to that point late last week.

But many members of the public said Tuesday that while those voices of support are appreciated, they’re not enough. Some called the ordinance a “matter of life and death” and said that leaders’ words alone couldn’t protect them in the same way that immediate legal action could.

“The time to protect trans people is now and not later,” Johnson said. “If the current trend in our country continues, the stakes for trans and gender non-conforming people and our allies will only worsen if we do not take action now.”

SB 180 goes into effect on July 1, but the City Commission as of right now is not scheduled to meet again until Tuesday, July 11, because next week is the last Tuesday of the month and the following week the meeting falls on the Fourth of July.

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In other business, an ordinance banning single-use plastic bags failed to pass.

Larsen was absent from Tuesday’s meeting, and the vote on whether to pass the ordinance from the commissioners who were there was 2-2, with Commissioners Brad Finkeldei and Amber Sellers voting no. In order to earn approval, the ordinance needed at least three votes, a simple majority of the commission.