State Rep. Abi Boatman, of Kansas’ 86th House District, won her reelection campaign this week. It was one of two resounding victories for her this election.
The other win is the likely downfall of some of the foremost architects of the crusade against transgender Kansans like Boatman.
In February, Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach helped orchestrate the mass invalidation of almost 2,000 birth certificates and/or licenses belonging to trans people in the state. He was also a staunch defender of SB 244 in court, the Kansas bill that stripped trans people of their right to accurate state ID and greenlit private citizen “bounty hunters” to sue anyone presumed to be a trans person in the “wrong” bathroom.
The Kansas attorney general race hasn’t been called, but with about 99% of the expected vote counted, Democrat Chris Mann is ahead of Kobach by roughly 13,000 votes, according to NBC News.
“Kobach’s loss is an important victory for all Kansans,” Boatman told Erin in the Morning the morning after the election. “It’s going to be refreshing to have an AG that isn’t the state’s biggest and most consistent embarrassment, costing taxpayers year after year to prosecute a culture war.”
The ACLU has filed a legal challenge against SB 244 and Kobach’s anti-trans crackdown. In the meantime, Boatman and countless others live in constant limbo. The state’s clumsy rollout of its anti-trans policies means trans Kansans have had their documents revoked seemingly at random; Boatman, for example, still has her license, but lives on edge in anticipation of the day that may suddenly not be the case. She must nonetheless continue to work for and govern a state where she cannot use the women’s restroom in her own place of work.
“It’s just another thing on the daily checklist of living while trans,” she said.
Kobach’s fall coincides with a nationwide reckoning in this midterm election. Texas turned blue for the first time in a generation. Georgia elected Keisha Lance Bottoms, a Democrat, as the first Black woman governor in U.S. history. Nationwide, Democrats seized control of the House, Senate, and the majority of governorships.
Likewise, Mann wasn’t the only major Democratic victory in Kansas. Adam Hamilton beat incumbent Roger Marshall in the Senate, becoming the first Democratic Senator in Kansas since the 1930s. Cindy Holscher is similarly pulling just ahead of Ty Masterson in the gubernatorial race, although, like in Kobach’s race, votes are still being counted.
All of these races matter to Kansans like Theodore Laubengayer, a member of the Kansas Compliance Crew—a group of trans-masculine people dedicated to challenging SB 244’s bathroom ban.
“I’ve personally been affected by SB 244,” he told Erin in the Morning. “We deserve a state that works for all of us, not one that makes a political target out of a small part of its population.”
He’s not the only one. Matthew Neumann, founder of the LGBTQ Foundation of Kansas, was relieved by the outcome of this election—but he warns that the work isn’t done. “I have been battling him and his transphobia in this state for years, from one bill to the next,” Neumann said of Kobach. “He is just one of many in this state who have come after us. This is a battle won in a war that continues.”
It’s not wholly clear what the undoing of the ID revocation policy might look like. However, even without the political power to formally undo it, a Democratic AG could decline to enforce parts of SB 244 or potentially stop defending it from the ACLU’s legal challenge altogether.
Boatman, the lone transgender lawmaker in the state, is already thinking a few steps ahead. The GOP still holds the majority in the state legislature, but the midterms tipped the scales, if only just a little. She took office earlier this year, and has only ever served under a Republican supermajority. Democrats broke that stronghold in the Kansas House this week.
“I’m very excited that the GOP has to talk to us now instead of just running roughshod and reckless through the entire session,” Boatman said. Always the diplomat, she added that she was eager to pivot to other policy priorities—like legalizing marijuana or strengthening education in Kansas. The midterms are over, and now, there is work to be done.
Flipping fantastic news. Another one booted to the trash heap.
What a pleasure it will be to kick this bigot to the curb.