The Kansas Senate voted 24-10 to pass a bill that bans transgender athletes in girl's and women's school sports. The proposal now goes to the Republican-controlled House.Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly on Wednesday derided the proposed ban on transgender athletes in girls' and womens' school sports as “regressive.”Kelly predicted ahead of a state Senate debate on the bill that the policy would make it more difficult to recruit businesses to the state. But supporters dismissed her criticism, and the measure was a priority for top Republicans in the Senate, where the GOP has a supermajority.Republicans in Congress and more than 20 state legislatures are pushing for similar bans, though supporters largely haven’t been able to cite examples of transgender students’ participation causing problems. Idaho enacted a similar law last year that’s being challenged in federal court, and Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed a measure into law last week.Kelly stopped short Wednesday of promising to veto the Kansas measure if it passes the Senate and then the House, as supporters expect. However, she pointed to a past executive order on LGBTQ rights as signaling her position. A day after taking office in 2019, Kelly prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in state hiring or employment decisions.“We know from lots of experience in other states that when you implement these kinds of regressive social policies that you significantly decrease the ability to attract businesses here,” Kelly said. “Businesses want us to be inclusive.” The state association that oversees middle and high school activities in Kansas has said it knows of only five transgender students currently active in K-12 activities, and there’s no record of any transgender school sports champions. Supporters argue that a ban would promote fairness in girls’ and women’s sports and repeatedly point to the 15 championships won between 2017 and 2019 by two transgender high school runners in Connecticut, which prompted a federal lawsuit.Supporters of the Kansas bill also said they’re protecting the hard-won opportunities in sports and other activities since federal civil rights laws in the 1970s.“It’s a very positive step for girls in Kansas,” said Brittany Jones, advocacy director for the conservative Family Policy Alliance of Kansas. “Courts have consistently held that there are differences between men and women that matter in select instances. Athletics is one of those instances. Girls desire a fair playing field. That is all this bill provides. To every female athlete – this is a declaration that there is a place for you to shoot for the stars in Kansas.”State Sen. Renee Erickson, a Wichita Republican, said it’s fairer for Kansas to impose the ban before transgender athletes participate widely in girls’ and womens' sports. She said Kelly “put money over what’s best for our women” by worrying about business recruiting. “It simply requires an equal and level playing field for women and girls, what we’ve had in place,” said Erickson, a former college basketball player. Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, a Kansas City-area Democrat, called the measure “hateful” and “rooted in bigotry.” And she grew irritated during the debate with a key message from supporters of the bill, that natural differences mean that men are naturally the superior athletes in almost every sport.“I appreciate several of my male colleagues telling me how they want to protect the underdog, how men are superior. I actually find that rather misogynistic and rude,” she said. “Excluding women who are trans hurts all women.”LGBTQ-rights advocates see the bill as an attack on transgender kids that is likely to increase bullying of them, and they argue that the debate itself is damaging their mental health. “They’ve gotten some affirmation, and now they’re seeing that being stripped and being stripped by a governmental organization,” said first-term state Rep. Stephanie Byers, a Wichita Democrat and Kansas’ first transgender lawmaker. Sen. Mark Steffen, a Republican from south-central Kansas and an anesthesiologist, said the bill was based on “indisputable physiological facts" that demonstrate “the male as a genetically and time-engineered superior machine." Sen. Virgil Peck, a southeast Kansas Republican, said he backed the bill because he believes in ”old-fashioned chivalry" and wants to take a stand for “young ladies, natural-born females.”“Have we - men - given away our manpower to the snowflakes? Are we going to allow someone to carry around our manhood in their fanny pack or in their purse?" Peck said. “Are there no longer any alpha males who will stand and defend our young ladies, our wives, our daughters, our granddaughters, our neighbors' wives, daughters, and granddaughters?"