To the editor:

I had an elementary school classmate who was born with both male and female body parts. A certain percentage of every generation is born that way. That student would have to urinate in the bushes if attending school in Kansas today, couldn’t use the restrooms and could expect to be bullied and marginalized. Such an individual was formerly and wrongly identified as a hermaphrodite. Today, the proper term intersex is used.

In his inauguration speech, Trump declared there were only two sexes, and it looks like red state legislatures are only too eager to follow suit. The point is not the number of sexes, but the effort to ignore nature and marginalize and demoralize all intersex citizens. But, it gets worse. For every intersex person, according to my research, there are six to 10 individuals that have normal body parts, but are born with brains internally “wired” for the opposite sex. It is a condition found in at least 40 species of mammals and birds. We call them homosexuals, or a dozen other pejorative names.

Legislators at every level are attempting to enact laws that ignore and disregard what we know about human sexuality, as well as constitutional guarantees; to make some hapless citizens into victims who can then be tormented, sometimes to the point of suicide. Is this the America all citizens deserve?

Graham Kreicker,

Lawrence