Shawnee has no ‘scientific basis’ for backing anti-trans sports bans, retired doctor says

A retired family practitioner in Shawnee said the city council’s decision Monday to support anti-transgender sports bans at the state and federal levels was based on overly broad claims about transgender women and girls having an unfair advantage over cisgender women and girls.

Councilmembers voted 7-1 to approve their legislative priorities for the upcoming year after a nearly two-hour long public comment session in which the majority of residents urged officials to drop a measure saying the council favored anti-trans sports bans.

The doctor, Dan Murphy, said not enough studies have been done on transgender athletes to prove they have a biological advantage, especially if a transgender child used puberty blockers or an adult that went through puberty has taken female hormones.

“The thing that bothers me the most about the ban is the fact that it is taking some of the old social norms and just putting a new name on them,” Murphy said. “For example, the idea that Black kids couldn’t compete in certain sports or in certain spaces because they were Black.

“The argument that they are not working hard at their sport is just ludicrous,” he said. “This reminds me of the pre-Civil Rights era of making excuses for exclusion without any scientific basis whatsoever.”

Councilwoman Jill Chalfie was the only dissenter on the measure. She, along with Mayor Michelle Distler, said they didn’t believe the city should take a hard stance on an issue that doesn’t normally fall within the jurisdiction of municipal government.

“I don’t feel comfortable making this statement as a city on a legislative platform,” Distler said. “I think if individual council members want to share their opinions, they can do that as a council member with their state reps without making it as a statement from the city because we are supposed to try to represent our entire city.”

The measure doesn’t mean that transgender students cannot play competitive sports with the gender they identify with in Shawnee. If the issue comes up in Topeka or Washington, D.C., the document serves as the city’s official position.

The topic has resurfaced ahead of the upcoming gubernatorial election, as Republican nominee and state Attorney General Derek Schmidt said he’d support bills to keep transgender women and girls from competing against cisgender women and girls, while incumbent Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly has vetoed the bill twice.

The public speaks out

At Monday’s meeting, three members of the public spoke in favor of the stance, but 14 people told council members to remove the measure from their legislative priorities. The majority in attendance said the decision sends a negative message to transgender and other LGBTQ+ people in Shawnee or those who might considering moving there.

“All this accomplishes is sending the message that transgender youth are not welcome in Shawnee,” said resident Alex Welch Blattner.

Welch Blattner said she didn’t understand why the city felt the need to take a stance on what sports team transgender students could play on, when it hadn’t done the same for other issues like Medicaid expansion, school funding or other issues. She and others said they felt the stance was meant to express the views of specific council members and shouldn’t be considered the opinion of the city as a whole.

Resident Brenan Riffel said by pushing anti-trans views at the city level, leaders are also telling others that it’s OK to discriminate against the transgender community.

They said the belief trans athletes are taking opportunities from cis athletes is unfounded and ultimately hurts transgender girls and women who want to be a part of a team and play sports.

“This proposal in and of itself is targeted bullying from adults to a few kids,” she said. “There is no attack on women’s sports. Trans girls are not dominating K-12 sports. We need to stop that lie.”

Other residents against the stance also cited studies that show high rates of suicidal thoughts among transgender youth as well as the positive impact inclusive schools and environments have had on transgender students’ mental health.

Speakers from the public, some of whom said they were members of the Kansas National Organization for Women, said they didn’t approve of the measure being presented as a feminist issue. They argued that feminists should stand for the rights of all girls and women, including the transgender community, and that allowing transgender athletes to compete does not take away opportunities from others.

Council members make unfounded claims

Council members Eric Jenkins and Angela Stiens said they felt allowing transgender girls and women to play on the same sports teams as cisgender girls and women was like throwing away the work past leaders did to push for Title IX.

Responding to public comments, Jenkins spoke for nearly 10 minutes, expressing transphobic views and making unfounded claims that transgender girls and women have an inherent advantage over cisgender girls and women because they may have different physical features.

He said residents should know he isn’t against transgender people because his granddaughter is dating “a trans,” and he has a gay son.

“The issue at hand right now is that some poor, young woman just busted her hump all her life to get to a level of excellence,” he said, “and somebody walked in at the last minute and said ‘too bad, I’m going to come in here and compete in the same thing as you and you’re screwed.’

“To me, that’s cruel,” he said. “That’s incredibly cruel. You’re taking a whole lifetime of work away from somebody and just dump on ‘em at the finish line. I would be embarrassed to present that argument really. I don’t know how you can present that.”

Jenkins said he understands that there are higher rates of suicidal thoughts among LGBTQ+ identifying youth, but he also claimed that people who have undergone medical transitions have experienced higher rates of suicide. Studies actually show that transgender people who receive gender-affirming surgery have lower rates of psychological distress and suicidal ideations.

“We really aren’t talking about all that,” he said. “We’re talking about protecting a young woman who has worked hard her entire life to achieve goals she has set for herself, and now we’re just going to whisk them away from her because some guy decided he wants to be a female and he kind of maybe wants to win the gold medal.”

Other council members, including Stiens, Jacklynn Walters, Tony Gillette and Tammy Thomas agreed that allowing transgender girls and women to compete against cis girls and women would give them an unfair advantage, believing transgender girls and women will always have a “biological” advantage. Thomas also said her views were supported by her brother “who is in the gay lifestyle” and agreed with her that it would be unfair.

Murphy, the retired family practitioner now living in Shawnee, said these claims are overly broad. While there haven’t been many studies of transgender athletes, Murphy said one found that transgender athletes at the elite level had little advantage over cisgender competitors following two years of hormone therapy.

The advantage athletes have varies greatly by the sport, and often isn’t large. And for young students competing, Murphy said kids who used puberty blockers had no advantage over cisgender athletes in their sport.

“There have been no studies yet that show there is an inherent benefit to being a trans female,” he said. “There is no evidence to suggest trans females maintain any advantage after hormone therapy.”