TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) Kansas child welfare agency has drafted guidelines urging foster parents to allow LGBTQ kids in their care to express themselves as they see themselves, riling conservatives a little more than a year after the state granted legal protections to faith-based adoption agencies that do not place children in LGBTQ homes.
The Department for Children and Families issued draft guidance for prudent parenting in mid-July, six months after Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly took office. It said foster homes should recognize LGBTQ children by their preferred identity if it differs from their sex assigned at birth.
Conservatives read the document as a policy directive for reshaping foster families lives and an attempt to skirt a 2018 law that Kelly doesnt like for protecting faith-based adoption agencies. Its a sharp break in tone with that law, which prevents the state from barring agencies from providing services if they refuse to place children in homes violating their religious beliefs.
The departments move drives home the difference Kellys election last year made on hot-button social issues. Her administration followed eight years of conservative Republican control in a state that still has a GOP-dominated Legislature and a Republican Party with a platform declaring, We believe God created two genders, male and female.
Its going to continue pushing this envelope, said Kansas House Majority Leader Dan Hawkins, a conservative Wichita Republican, who worried in a recent newsletter about the department pursuing a social experiment.
The department presented the first draft of its guidelines during a quarterly meeting with private agencies that place abused and neglected children in foster and adoptive homes.
State officials said a final version could be ready later this month and wont be formal policy or regulations, just principles for placement agencies and foster families. As such, they wouldnt be subject to outside review though Hawkins and other conservatives are considering legislative hearings.
Department officials said their first draft was a response to questions that private agencies passed along from foster parents who want to support LGBTQ youth. They said theyre picking up on best practices from other states and national groups.
The fact of wanting children were caring for to feel safe and welcome in their foster homes just shouldnt be a controversial issue to anybody, Laura Howard, the departments top administrator, said in a recent interview.
But Kellys views on LGBTQ rights already had conservatives on edge. Kansas said in June that it would allow transgender people to change their birth certificates to reflect their gender identities. Under Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, the state had some of the nations toughest rules for making such changes.
Kelly also said before taking office that she would try to avoid enforcing last years adoption law if she could. Conservatives link that stance and the departments new guidance, though its officials say there is none.
It looks like an end-run around the adoption-protection act, said Chuck Weber, director of the Kansas Catholic Conference.
The departments guidance says foster children have the right to wear clothing and hairstyles that suit their gender identity and that refusing to use their preferred pronouns can endanger their physical and emotional well-being.
Within days, the conservative Family Policy Alliance of Kansas criticized the guidance publicly as imposing an invasive sexual agenda. The first draft of the guidance included a Q&A discussion about transgender foster youth sharing rooms with other children and having sleepovers.
State Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook, a conservative Kansas City-area Republican, said the guidelines endanger safety. For example, she said, the first draft tells foster parents that if space in their home is limited, a biological boy teenager can share a bedroom with a teenage girl.
