BLOG

This election season could decide the future in Kansas and across the county. Already on August 2 Kansans stood up defiantly for civil liberties — and the fight for those rights returns when we vote on November 8.

Before you make your voting plan, make sure you are registered to vote by the deadline, Tuesday, October 18. You can update or check your registration status at ksvotes.org and request an advance mail ballot by November 1.

Once you're registered, here are five steps to get your voting plan together:

1. Find your polling location on Kansas Voter View.
2. Pick a date and time you'll vote. Do you need to take off work or find childcare?
3. Plan how you'll get there - do you need a ride?
4. Bring your driver's license or other valid form of ID.
5. Find someone to bring with you.

If you have any issues with registering to vote or with voting by mail, early in-person, or on Election Day, please contact the Election Protection Hotline at 1-866-OUR-VOTE (Spanish, Arabic, and other language options available).

Democracy isn't just about pulling the lever for a certain person — it's about our shared values and the idea that everyone's voice matters. Thank you for making your voting plan and showing up to vote.

Date

Show featured image

Hide banner image

Related issues

Show related content

Pinned related content

Tweet Text

Type

Menu parent dynamic listing

Show PDF in viewer on page

Style

Show list numbers

Author

• Read more about Make your voting plan -- today.

In the seven years since the Supreme Court confirmed in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex couples have the right to marry, the LGBTQ+ liberation movement has both celebrated monumental successes and faced aggressive, ongoing attacks. In more recent years, there has been a marked increase in anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment across the country—and within our state of Kansas.

The number of anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups in the United States has ballooned from 45 pre-Obergefell to 65 as of 2021.[1] And Kansas has seen consistent legislative attacks on LGBTQ+ people, fostering a hostile social climate for LGBTQ+ Kansans across the state.[2] 

While some are quick to brush off LGBTQ+ issues as a problem for populated cities in coastal states, this is not the case­­—55% of the United States’ adult LGBTQ+ population lives in the Midwest or South, and an estimated 92,000 LGBTQ+ people live in Kansas.[3] Issues impacting the LGBTQ+ community impact our Kansas community as a whole, and we must not ignore that fact. Additionally, a significant number of LGBTQ+ Kansans live in rural counties and are more likely to experience discrimination, community resentment, and a lack of access to support structures.[4]

In fact, LGBTQ+ Kansans are facing troubling amounts of discrimination across multiple areas of their lives. Nearly one-third of transgender Kansans report being fired, denied a promotion, or not hired because of their gender identity or expression.[5] And 23% of LGBTQ+ Kansans report they have been discriminated against at a restaurant, hotel, or other business because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.[6]

This discrimination has harmful lasting impacts in LGBTQ+ Kansans lives—making LGBTQ+ Kansans twice as likely to be unemployed as their non-LGBTQ+ counterparts and nearly three times as likely to not have money for food.[7] One-third of transgender Kansans report experiencing homelessness, and more than one-third report living in poverty.[8] Anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination can also lead to worse mental and physical health outcomes for LGBTQ+ people in the state.[9]

Though this may seem like a bleak picture I’m painting of LGBTQ+ Kansans’ experiences, it’s important that we remember it does not have to be this way. In fact, most Kansans want to protect LGBTQ+ people—67% of Kansans support LGBTQ+ non-discrimination protections.[10]

This fact doesn’t surprise me. As a lifelong Kansan, I’m very familiar with our state’s sense of community and generosity. But as an openly queer and transgender person, I’m also familiar with the challenges LGBTQ+ people face living here.

That is why I will be spending the next two years with the ACLU of Kansas as a Legal Fellow focused on enforcing, strengthening, and expanding LGBTQ+ Kansans’ legal protections. I will be solely dedicated to advocating for LGBTQ+ Kansans rights.

This fellowship builds on my longstanding recognition of the need to build community and stand up for the rights of LGBTQ+ people in this state. I have been advocating for LGBTQ+ Kansans since my undergraduate career at Newman University, and I continued that advocacy during my law school career at the University of Kansas. Over the years, I have met many dedicated LGBTQ+ advocates and countless LGBTQ+ Kansans and allies from across the state.

My experiences have made it clear that most Kansans want to improve the lives of LGBTQ+ people in our state—but my years in this space and my own lived experience have also highlighted the lack of resources and support that exist toward that end. Currently, there is no organization in Kansas solely dedicated to enforcing and protecting LGBTQ+ Kansans’ rights through litigation, legal advocacy, and public education. And with the rise of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment across the country and in the Kansas statehouse, it is more important than ever that LGBTQ+ Kansans have someone in their corner.

While I am honored to be able to step into this role, I know that LGBTQ+ Kansans cannot reach liberation through my work alone. That will take community power, political engagement, and a commitment to acting with love. I am thrilled to begin this work for our state, and eager to connect with other Kansans who want to do the same.

To learn more or get involved with D.C.’s work in Kansas, please contact them at [email protected].

Date

Featured image

Show featured image

Hide banner image

Related issues

Show related content

Pinned related content

Tweet Text

Type

Menu parent dynamic listing

Show PDF in viewer on page

Style

Show list numbers

Author

• Read more about Expanding protections for LGBTQ+ Kansans

Kansas voters shocked the nation in the August election, resoundingly rejecting a state constitutional amendment that would have turned back the clock on women’s rights, bodily autonomy, and abortion access. 

Of course this is cause for celebration – but guardedly so. 

The hallmark of wide swaths of our country is an unwillingness or inability to accept defeat graciously.  If you think the folks who are trying to bring you forced pregnancies, compulsory religiosity, and other oppressive and un-American ideas will take their ball and go home to sin no more, you’re mistaken.

Ever hear of the “lost cause,” as in the lost cause of the Confederacy? According to journalist Jon Meacham, Edward Alfred Pollard concocted this term less than a year after the Confederacy surrendered at Appomattox. 

“Because the war itself was lost, and the war over slavery had been lost, that the South should not reengage in a force of arms, but it should engage in a battle of ideas where the enemy was declared to be the forces of centralization centered in Washington,” Meacham said in a speech several years ago. “It was an animating narrative that urged those who harbored a deep belief in white supremacy to give them hope to continue to fight.”

And continue to fight they have. 

People still fly the Confederate Battle flag here in the Free State of Kansas out of some misguided belief that the flag remains merely a symbol of heritage. The man who designed it said differently. The vice president of the Confederacy said differently. The seceding states said differently as they left the union.

We even saw that blasted flag when another group of Americans (though seemingly of similar lineage), unable to accept defeat, attacked the Capitol Building on January 6 of last year. Thousands of them, some heavily armed, descended on the seat of democracy in the world and tried to overturn an election.

This, after judges laughed out and/or tossed out more than 60 of court cases claiming fraud in the 2020 Presidential election.

Frighteningly, wide swaths of our fellow citizens still believe someone rigged the 2020 election in favor of President Biden. 

The Johnson County Sheriff believes this.

Our congressional delegation – except for Rep. Sharice Davids – voted to overturn the 2020 election.

None of this anti-democracy sentiment is new. After the largest, multi-racial group of Americans turned out to vote Barack Obama into office, these same forces responded with voter suppression laws in no fewer than 17 states aimed directly at the new, voting majority of women, people of color and young people.

After Davids unseated an incumbent in her congressional race in 2018, Susan Wagle, then the president of the state senate, announced that voting district boundaries could be redrawn to ensure that neither Davids nor any other member of her party, could ever win that seat again.

And earlier this year, that actually happened.

All of these experiences should teach us a lesson – namely that we should bet on a bitter response rising out of the trouncing that extremists took the night of August 2.

That’s a big part of why our politics have grown so extreme. Sore losers employ evermore extreme measures to win when they can’t win on the merits.

But the key word here is losers. Losers continue to fly the Confederate Battle flag. Losers storm the Capitol.

And losers suppress the vote. After the tidal wave of turnout, don’t be surprised if some legislator here wants to bring back tools reminiscent of, if not identical to, the “guess how many jellybeans there are in the jar” or “how many bubbles are on this piece of soap” registration used in the past to deny Black citizens the vote.

So, if you’ve been celebrating, party hard. Rest. Then get ready.

The counterattack is definitely coming. 

Date

Featured image

Show featured image

Hide banner image

Related issues

Show related content

Tweet Text

Type

Menu parent dynamic listing

Show PDF in viewer on page

Style

Show list numbers

• Read more about Celebrate now, but gird for the counter-attack