In late May, I sat on the floor of my friend’s apartment, staring at the whiteboard leaning against the wall across from us. The board was divided into multiple sections, each with the name of a city written in all caps across the top and followed by a pros and cons list. The final section was merely titled “Stay in Kansas?” The space underneath it was depressingly empty.
The exercise was a continuation of a conversation we’d started in February, one that had expanded in the months since Senate Bill 244 had passed in our home state of Kansas. The law, which defines “the term ‘gender’ to mean biological sex at birth for purposes of statutory construction,” not only restricted trans citizens’ access to public bathrooms in government buildings but also invalidated identification records with updated gender markers. That included state IDs like drivers’ licences—and meant that trans Kansans had to surrender their licences for updated ones, in some cases with less than 24 hours’ notice.
And so the question remained: Did my friend stay in his hometown, knowing the risks of being a trans man in a state that seemingly wanted to erase his identity? Or did he leave, grudgingly saying goodbye to the life he’d known for 25 years but opting for a friendlier state instead?
It’s a question many trans people in Kansas have struggled with over the past six months, and for a good number of them, the answer quickly became clear: It was time to go.
“There’s sort of a broader refugee crisis happening in the country,” explains Samantha Boucher, founder of Trans Liberty, an organization that focuses on trans issues in the South and in middle America. “If this were happening anywhere else, the UN would declare it an internal migration crisis.”
To anyone in the queer community in Kansas, it’s obvious that her words aren’t hyperbole. After all, I am likely one of many people who have sat in front of a pros and cons list, helping to make a life-altering decision. But for Trans Liberty, the numbers aren’t just ballpark hypotheticals. Under its program Operation Lifeboat, a humanitarian operation that recruited military veterans and disaster response professionals to help in the wake of Senate Bill 244, the organization has worked with 59 individuals and families in the state of Kansas to assist in finding resources (such as gender-affirming care, jobs at safer workplaces and even providing financial support for those left in difficult positions) or leaving the state.
Isaiah Upton, deputy incident commander of Operation Lifeboat, is one of the retired veterans who volunteered to onboard as a case manager. Though not from Kansas, he felt close to the cause and the implications it could have on the rest of the United States.
“I saw what [Trans Liberty] was doing, and I was like, ‘Okay, I’ve got the time, and I’m very upset right now,’” Upton says. “I’m in Texas, and there’s not much I can do with my situation in my state. But I see these people over here, and they’re attached to a national org, and the people in Kansas have it markedly worse.”
Upton started working under Operation Lifeboat at the end of March; within a week and a half, he had already relocated his first clients. It was through this program that Upton met Siobhán Kirchstein, a trans woman and custodian working at the University of Kansas who reached out to the organization to help her find the resources to stay.
Kirchstein, like many of the estimated 22,400 trans people who resided in the state prior to the bill being passed, had surrendered her licence in February after receiving a letter from the Kansas Department of Revenue that she describes as “draconian.” But almost six months later, she found herself victimized by the law once again: on July 10, an email from the university’s HR department arrived in her inbox claiming she was in violation of Senate Bill 244. Someone on campus had reported her for using the women’s bathroom.
“If I’m going to stay here, I’m going to fight.”
Kichstein said she’d understood the risks of staying in Kansas. After all, just two months prior to receiving the email, another trans woman in Kirchstein’s city was pulled over by a Kansas State Patrol trooper who reported her for operating a motor vehicle without a valid licence due to the “M” on her licence—the gender marker she’d changed to comply with the law.
“When people ask me, do I want to leave? On one hand, yeah, I probably would feel safer,” Kirchstein says. “But for me, what’s most important is that there are people who can’t leave. There are people who don’t want to leave. I would be filled with guilt for using my privilege to leave people behind, because this is all of our fight, so I’d rather stand with them no matter what happens.”
So that’s what Kirchstein decided to do. A few days after the warning from HR, she met with Hana Blair, a doctoral student at the university who had been in the process of immigrating to Canada before realizing certain bureaucratic roadblocks would make getting her visa nearly impossible. Instead, she pivoted, pursuing graduate school in Kansas, but continuing her activist work alongside her studies. Blair’s sentiments echo Kirchstein’s: “I started thinking about my options and I thought, ‘Well, if I’m going to stay here, I’m going to fight.’”
The two worked with Upton and other community members to form Trans Solidarity KU, an advocacy group focused on protecting students and staff from the repercussions of Senate Bill 244. Organizers hope to fill the void of resources and support left by a hostile government and institutions. (Blair pointed out that the University of Kansas’ resource webpage for Sexual and Gender Diversity, which once helped students and locals change their name and gender markers and connect to LGBTQ2S+-friendly organizations, is now made up entirely of dead links.) For now, it’s unclear how the law will continue to shape the state. At the moment, the district court is considering a case brought forward by the ACLU challenging the law, but according to Boucher, no matter the outcome, it’s likely some of the damage done is already irreparable.
“I can think of many examples of people fleeing a place to never return,” Boucher says. “I can’t think of very many where the opposite was true. A generation down the line, if all the trans adults had to leave, who’s going to be there for the kids? But it’s not like only trans people are taking care of other trans people. Other people can and will hold down that fort.”
It’s that care that seems to be the crux of the mission, no matter what angle you look at it from. While each person I spoke to encouraged allies to donate to trans advocacy groups (“Don’t send blankets, don’t send food, just send your cash,” Boucher jokes, “like that famous George Bush meme”), they also each mentioned a specific aspect of support that didn’t escape my notice: community. Whether that’s finding common ground with other identity groups in town, making an effort to get to know your neighbours, or even just sitting in front of a whiteboard with a friend as they make a difficult decision, Boucher sums it up in a simple call to action.
“Show up,” she says. “If you write down two words I’ve said this entire damn time, it’s just ‘Show up.’”
Why you can trust Xtra
