photo by: Contributed

Isaac Johnson

Life is difficult for the trans community in Kansas. As a transgender man living in this state, I and my trans friends have often encountered bullying and harassment, particularly by peers in school. On top of the daily torment of degradation and ostracization that we are forced to face in our schools and out in our communities, our state’s lawmakers have attacked the trans community and attempted to subvert our fundamental freedoms. Driven by bigotry and a misunderstanding of the trans community, we saw state lawmakers introduce 16 bills in last year’s session alone designed to persecute the LGBTQ+ community typically under the guise of “protecting women or children.”

To ensure the continued safety and political freedoms of the trans, nonbinary and gender nonconforming communities in Kansas, the Trans Lawrence Coalition has proudly rallied against these efforts. For instance, we fought hard against the passage of SB 180, which claimed to be a “women’s bill of rights,” but legally defined trans people out of existence, leaving us vulnerable to state-sanctioned discrimination. Though it eventually passed, we responded by working with the Lawrence City Commission to pass a Safe Haven provision to ensure it couldn’t be enforced in Lawrence. Despite this success, our attorney general, Kris Kobach, later weaponized SB 180 to deny us the right to change our gender markers, and, retroactively reverted identification that had already been changed.

Legislation like what we have seen come out of our Statehouse in the past few years is rooted in bigoted and incendiary rhetoric that we need to “protect vulnerable groups” from the trans community. The consequences of such hateful thinking are evident at face value but were brutally illustrated earlier this year through the death of Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old Choctaw nonbinary student from Oklahoma, who died after a fight in the girls’ bathroom at school that they were forced, by law, to use.

Tragedies like this underscore the power that laws can have, particularly in their impact on vulnerable communities. That’s why it is imperative to oppose legislative proposals at all levels that threaten to harm them, which now compels us to speak out against the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). Just as SB 180 was a guise for discrimination, misused by Kobach to deny transgender individuals their rights, KOSA could similarly be manipulated to marginalize queer identities under the pretense of protecting children.

In reality, it’s a legal platform that can be abused by federal and state lawmakers to influence social media companies to control the content that kids can find online. It does so by subjecting platforms to a “duty of care” to moderate content considered “harmful to minors” without defining that vague and subjective benchmark. This empowers the FTC and state attorneys general to interpret what that could mean and file federal and state lawsuits, respectively, when they believe companies fail to adhere to their standards. Given the continued legacy of our legal institutions labeling queerness as obscene or pornographic, the risk of content related to or created by trans people being censored is assured.

Online platforms are integral spaces for the LGBTQ+ community. For our organization, platforms like our Discord server have become a place to meet and connect with those who face similar circumstances and experiences. For some, it might be the only place where they feel safe and comfortable enough to do so. Jeopardizing access to these vital spaces does nothing to protect kids; it only harms those who already face innumerable harms in their daily lives. As a former trans teen, I must attest it was these online spaces that did so much to keep me alive.

I hope Kansas’s lawmakers recognize the concerns that KOSA presents and do not follow the lead of their peers at the state level. Passing KOSA as it currently stands would be a dangerous mistake.

— Isaac Johnson is a member of the TransLawrence Coalition.