Stephanie Byers of the Kansas House of Representatives built her campaign platform on protecting the rights of the LGBTQ community. Now the Wichita Democrat is serving her second year as the state's first openly transgender lawmaker, confronting head-on as GOP legislators pass numerous bills targeting LGBTQ topics in schools and attempt to ban transgender students from girls' and women's sports team.
The challenges have been personal, too: Byers has been on the receiving end of discriminatory comments from the public and, recently, from a Kansas Republican lawmaker, who publicly said she didn't want to share a bathroom with a transgender colleague.
"That's been the shoe that I've been waiting to hear it dropped for the last two years," Byers says. "I didn't run with the idea that this would insulate me from things like that."
Byers speaks with host Nomin Ujiyediin about this "emotionally charged" legislative session, and what's kept her going throughout.
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Kansas City Today is hosted today by Brian Ellison. It is produced by Byron Love, Trevor Grandin, and KCUR Studios and edited by Gabe Rosenberg and Lisa Rodriguez.
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