photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Lawrence Mayor Lisa Larsen, second from right, attends a meeting of the local PFLAG chapter Thursday, June 8, 2023, at the Lawrence Public Library. From left are Janis Guyot, PFLAG president, Amy Sanchez, vice president, and Amy Lee, secretary.

Lawrence Mayor Lisa Larsen on Thursday vowed to personally “fight tooth and nail” against laws that dehumanize the LGBTQ community in Lawrence.

Speaking at a PFLAG-sponsored event at the Lawrence Public Library, Larsen shared her thoughts specifically on SB 180, a new law taking effect on July 1 that bans transgender people from using bathrooms and other gender-specific facilities associated with their gender identity.

“I think the law is inhumane and that it should not be enforced,” said Larsen, but “we have to work on it as a commission … I can only speak as one commissioner, even though I’m the mayor.”

“We’re going to look at all the possibilities,” Larsen said of the city’s legal staff, from whom commissioners hope to get a report in the coming weeks regarding their options for reacting to SB 180. “We are looking at this in a very thoughtful manner.”

For many in the room, however, “working on it” and looking at “possibilities” felt dangerously inadequate.

One person said it felt like “we’re talking about crossing t’s and dotting i’s” while “abominable legal discrimination” is going on.

Another person said, “There is fear of loss of life; there are already people who feel like their lives are endangered.”

And many voiced concern that transgender people are leaving Kansas in droves before even harsher laws, like banning gender-affirming health care, can become reality, as they already have in some states.

Many expressed worry over “vigilantes” who might be emboldened by the new Kansas law to harass and assault transgender people in bathrooms, or even just people who look more masculine or feminine than a stranger deems acceptable.

Larsen said that she too worried about that possibility, especially since SB 180 “has no specific enforcement provisions.” The law, she noted, is virtually silent on penalties for violating it.

She tried to offer some comfort by saying the city itself would not change “anything that we do now.”

“We are not going to monitor bathroom use,” she said, and she noted that she had been informed that enforcing the law is a “nonissue” for Lawrence police.

In fact, before the meeting started, Janis Guyot, the president of the local PFLAG chapter, told attendees that Police Chief Rich Lockhart was interested in meeting with the group. Guyot shared an email from Lockhart that said: “I know there is a lot of fear in the LGBTQIA+ community with the passage of SB180 and I want to listen to all the concerns and understand what” the police can do to “ease some of the fear in our Trans Community.”

A number of folks asked Larsen about the possibility of Lawrence, following the lead of Kansas City, Missouri, becoming a sanctuary city for transgender folks.

Larsen was warm to the idea but cautious. She explained how the city got punished by state lawmakers when Lawrence declared itself a sanctuary city for immigrants.

The city’s designation was effectively “knocked out” by a state law forbidding such a designation.

“When that got overturned, it was one of the most hurtful things that has happened to the community,” said Larsen, noting the tremendous effort and expense that went into crafting the ordinance only for it to be thoroughly crushed.

“I want to protect against (the city’s reaction to SB 180) being overturned,” Larsen said, describing the city’s deliberateness in exploring SB 180 in full.

She acknowledged the truth of what one person in attendance said: “The Legislature has no love for Lawrence and no love for LGBTQ people. None.”

The majority-Republican Legislature, she said, has a history of pre-empting “liberal” Lawrence laws, giving as another example inclusionary zoning with regard to affordable housing. Within two weeks of Lawrence passing an ordinance, the Legislature “passed a law saying you can’t do inclusionary zoning,” she said. The same thing might happen with a proposed ordinance that would ban single-use plastic bags, she noted.

“We can make an ordinance, and legislators can come in and say you can’t do it,” she said, to the frustration of many, who still pressed for the need for the city to at least put out an official statement condemning SB 180.

“Our state wants us to be forcibly detransitioned or dead or out of Kansas, and as far as we know, the city feels the same way,” an attendee said. “Without a statement now, how am I to know the city will protect me?”

Something needs to be said now, another person said, “even if it gets reversed immediately; we just need some sign that it’s worth staying here.”

“I absolutely hear you,” Larsen said, indicating a personal familiarity with discrimination. “I’m a lesbian … I’ve been doing this a long time. I grew up in western Kansas.”

For the younger people in the room, especially, she attempted a note of optimism as the gathering ended.

“We stand on the shoulders of those who came before. We stand on the shoulders of Stonewall,” and Lawrence’s younger generations, she said, could stand on hers.