Twelve-year-old Jak Guimbellot lives in Kansas with his two moms—and spoke out recently at a local city council meeting, urging them to pass an ordinance that bans anti-LGBTQ discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations.
“If I’m with my mothers and we decide to go to a restaurant to eat,” Jak told the Olathe City Council, he doesn’t understand why they can be turned away because his moms are lesbian. He also doesn’t see why they can be fired from a job or denied access to an apartment. In school, he explained, the students are taught that everyone should be treated equally.
His mom Kate Guimbellot, also on the Kansas City Star video below, further explained that other communities in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area (of which Olathe is part), have adopted LGBTQ nondiscrimination ordinances. Olathe, however, has been slow to act. Their family specifically chose to live in Olathe because of its good schools, fun events, attention to things like recycling, and “amazing people.” The lack of a nondiscrimination ordinance is “that one missing thing” in an otherwise great community.
Kate was concerned about Jak speaking at the meeting because at previous meetings, some other attendees have used “horrific slurs” against LGBTQ people. At some point, however, she said, “He gets to go ask this question.” My interpretation of what she meant was that he has the right to confront those whose refusal to pass the ordinance directly impacts his family. That’s a tough call that I know many other LGBTQ parents have also made (and not always in the same way, which is fine; all of our kids and situations are different).
Neither Kansas nor neighboring Missouri have statewide nondiscrimination protections that specifically ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. No such federal protections exist, either, although the Equality Act, which passed the House in May, would create them.
