Rage. Seethe. Boil.

[Content Note: Transphobia; gender policing; harassment.]

FUCK THIS: "Kansas bills create 'bounty' on transgender students."

Legislation in Kansas that would restrict how public schools and colleges accommodate transgender students is receiving national attention because other students would be able to collect monetary damages if someone was in what is deemed the wrong bathroom.

Two separate but identical bills before House and Senate committees limit accommodations for transgender students. The measures say group bathrooms, locker rooms and showers must be limited to a single sex, and gender would be defined "by a person's chromosomes"—so that transgender students would have to use facilities associated with their birth genders.

If transgender students are discovered using group facilities for their identified genders, other students who were present can sue the schools and colleges. The measures allow an award of $2,500 for each incident, along with monetary damages for "all psychological, emotional and physical harm." Aggrieved students would have four years after an incident to file suit.

"We are referring to them as a $2,500 bounty on the head of every trans student," said Tom Witt of the advocacy group Equality Kansas. "This puts trans kids in danger."

The two bills, SB 513 and HB 2737, which comprise the "Student Physical Privacy Act," were introduced earlier this month and assigned to committee. So far, no hearings have been scheduled—which is not necessarily a good thing, as North Carolina just rammed through anti-queer legislation in 10 hours without giving opponents time to testify after Tennessee was obliged to shelve anti-queer legislation following trans youths' public testimony. So Kansas could be fixing to pull some shit once legislators get back from their "spring break" which lasts until April 27. (Must be nice!)

This is clearly heinous legislation in about a dozen different ways, but I'll just let trans student Taylor Stebbins heartbreakingly sum it up: "I already have to deal with so much, and my own self, attacking my own self, on a daily basis, and I don't need that extra violence on top of me. And if legislators want to protect somebody, it's trans students that they need to protect."

I take up space in solidarity with Taylor, and all the trans students across Kansas, who will be targeted by their peers in a whole new horrible way if this legislation is brought for a vote and passes.

And I direct a concentrated beam of contempt toward any adult who would support this trash under the auspices of "protecting children" as if trans kids don't need protection; as if they don't fucking count.