Officials at the University of Kansas have threatened a transgender employee over using the women’s restroom.
Janitor Siobhán Kirchstein told The Lawrence Times that she had been reported for violating Kansas’s strict bathroom law, which activists have described as one of the most aggressive anti-trans laws in the country.
The initial warning email written to Kirchstein was designed as a warning that using a restroom designated for a sex other than the one assigned to an individual at birth now violated state law.
“I wish to preface this email by acknowledging this is a sensitive matter, and my intention in reaching out is to provide awareness of the report and the law, extend to you an opportunity to be heard, and, if helpful, share resources,” writes Katie Varner, director of employee relations at the University of Kansas.
Officials at the university declined to comment on the matter with the newspaper.
The university said it had received a complaint about Kirchstein using a women’s restroom in Parker Hall, the building which houses the offices of the Kansas Geological Survey. Kirchstein said she does not work in an area with single-stall restrooms available to all genders. She says she has used the women’s restroom on campus for years without incident, she told the newspaper, and has no intention of complying with the law.
“I’ll stay until they basically fire me,” Kirchstein says. “If that’s what they want to do, that’s what I’ll do. But I have no intention of complying. No intention at all.”
That termination is far from an impossibility.
Last year, before the new law went into effect, KU fired transgender student worker Anthony Alvarez for speaking to the press about the university’s change in gender-inclusive housing policies, The Lawrence Times reported.
Kirchstein does not know who reported her.
“My immediate reaction was complete shock that anyone in the Kansas Geological Survey would do that to me in the first place,” Kirchstein says. “And then I was furious about it.”
The previously sent warning email may have only served as a notice, but it made the consequences of violating the law clear.
An individual reported a second time can face a $1,000 fine, and a subsequent violation can result in arrest on a misdemeanor charge. The university, meanwhile, can be fined $25,000 for a first violation of the law and $125,000 for each subsequent violation. It was unclear from the email to Kirchstein whether the institution is facing any fines.
Police at the Kansas State Capitol declined to enforce the law in April after Trans Liberty Executive Director Samantha Boucher traveled to Kansas and used the women’s restroom in a pre-announced act of civil disobedience. Meanwhile, even staunch anti-trans politicians such as Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach have acknowledged the law likely could not be enforced in all public restrooms, including those in skilled nursing facilities operated by the Kansas Office of Veterans Services.
But the letter to Kirchstein shows universities are prepared to enforce the law, even under duress.
“It does not matter whether or not KU says they’re not going to enforce SB 244 because all it takes is one person to freak out in the bathroom and report me, and that is exactly what happened,” Kirschstein says.
Photo courtesy of social media
