News & Commentary

The ACLU of Kansas says that on Monday, May 1, the final phase of a challenge to the Kansas Highway Patrol’s “Two-Step” and practice of unlawful detainment of drivers without reasonable suspicion will begin in court.

Kansas lawmakers on Thursday passed what critics call one of the most sweeping anti-trans bathroom bills in the nation, overriding Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto as conservative state lawmakers are increasingly embracing culture war policies.

“The Kansas bill would certainly be among the most restrictive ones that we’ve seen in the country — one of the most expansive, one of the most extreme and really just one of the most mean spirited and hurtful,” ACLU of Kansas Executive Director Micah Kubic said before the House vote. “School districts are probably one of the very first places where this bill and all of the other ones like it will show up.”

“What it’s about is politicians getting in the way of parents, children and their medical providers,” said D.C. Hiegert, a legal fellow with the ACLU of Kansas, in an interview with Kansas Capitol Bureau.

“The lack of clarity is by design because it allows them to disclaim the worst possible interpretation while also allowing for the worst possible outcome to happen,” said Micah Kubic, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, which opposed the law.

The city has spent more than $267,000 in legal fees since being sued over the gang list in April 2021 by the ACLU of Kansas and Kansas Appleseed. The organizations say police use the list to target Black and Latino residents who are identified as gang members with little or no evidence.

GOVERNMENTKansas Gov. Laura Kelly rejects transgender bathroom bill, gender-affirming care banAndrew BahlTopeka Capital-Journal

“Companies have made it clear that they are not interested in doing business with states that discriminate against workers and their families," Kelly says.

THERE ARE TIMES when I wonder whether I’m in denial about the perilous state of trans rights; I find my attention snapping from a lovely dinner with my polycule, most of whom are trans, to the screaming Mouth of Sauron that is social media’s endless shouting about how me and my people are all going to die. It can feel convincing; the evidence piles up with every legislative filing, from coast to coast. It’s a bleak picture made up of far more than unkind words.