Kansas Must Undo Gender Changes for Trans People in State Records, Attorney General Says
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A new Kansas law requires the state to reverse any previous gender changes in its records for trans people's birth certificates and driver's licenses while also preventing such changes going forward, the state's conservative Republican attorney general declared Monday. Attorney General Kris Kobach also said public schools' records for students must list them as being the gender they were assigned at birth, whether or not teachers and staff recognize their gender identities.
Democratic Governor Laura Kelly's office said she disagrees with Kobach's views, though it did not say whether state agencies under the governor's control would follow or defy them, setting up the possibility of a court fight. In 2019, a federal judge began requiring Kansas to allow transgender people to change their birth certificates to settle a lawsuit over a no-change policy. “The attorney general must be off his rocker,” said Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, an attorney for Lambda Legal, which represented the four Kansas residents. “This was a bunch of bombast by an attorney general engaging in politics.”
A formal but non-binding legal opinion issued Monday by Kobach and his statements during a Statehouse news conference confirmed that the new law, if fully in effect, legally would erase transgender people’s gender identities. Opponents predicted as much before the Republican-controlled Legislature enacted the law over Kelly’s veto, but the debate focused mostly on keeping transgender people from using restrooms and other facilities in line with their gender identities.
The new law defines a person's sex — which can conflict with gender identity — based on a person's "biological reproductive system” at birth. A female has a system “developed to produce ova” while a male has a system “developed to fertilize” that ova. It says “important governmental objectives” of protecting people's health, safety and privacy justify sex-segregated spaces. “You can choose whatever name you want. You can choose to live however you want,” said state Sen. Renee Erickson, of Wichita, one of three Republican lawmakers who joined Kobach during his news conference. “That does not make you a woman.”
If Kansas didn't allow transgender people to change their birth certificates — its policy before the judge's 2019 order — it would be among only a few states. Federal judges earlier this month upheld Oklahoma and Tennessee policies against such changes, and Montana could be sued in state courts over a 2022 law.
He said he is not yet pressing for state action on birth certificates to give a federal judge a chance to grant his request to cancel the 2019 order. He argued that the state law takes precedent over what he described as a judge signing off on a legal settlement — an idea others dispute. “The Legislature has spoken,” Kobach said during his news conference. “The governor’s staff and the governor’s agencies cannot act as if the Legislature did not override her veto.”
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UPDATE: Authorities in Kansas City say two people have been arrested in connection with Sunday morning's fatal shootings. This is a developing story.
Eight People Shot, Three Killed Early Sunday Morning in Kansas City
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP/KPR) — At least three people have been found dead, and at least five others are thought to be injured, police in Missouri said while investigating two shootings with multiple victims in the same area of Kansas City early Sunday morning. Officers were called to the intersection of 57th Street and Prospect Avenue just after 4:30 am where they found three shooting victims — two men and one woman — dead in a parking lot and in the street.
Police initially said at least five others were shot and taken to hospitals by private vehicles and ambulances. On Monday, police said they had identified a sixth person who was wounded and taken to a hospital.
The fatalities were identified Monday as Nikko Manning, 22; Jasity Strong, 28; and Camden Brown, 29.
The investigation indicates the gathering took place outside an auto mechanic shop that is known to host informal after hours gatherings, though there is not a licensed club, bar or restaurant at that location, police spokesperson Jake Becchina said in an email. Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Quinton Lucas posted on Twitter, "My condolences to the families of three people killed in a shooting this morning at an apparent after-hours gathering near 57 and Prospect. If the business knew persons would be present, without security, selling alcohol, and thwarting our laws, that business should be closed."
One person of interest was taken into custody later Sunday.
Police say they also responded to a nearby shooting on Prospect Avenue near 31st Street around 3 am Sunday, where at least one person suffered life-threatening injuries.
(Additional reporting...)
Police Question Person of Interest in Shooting that Killed 3 in Kansas City
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A person of interest has been questioned in a weekend shooting that killed three people and wounded several more in Kansas City, police said. Responding officers found two men and a woman dead from gunshot wounds at around 4:30 a.m. Sunday in a parking lot where a crowd had gathered, near an auto shop known to host informal after-hours get-togethers, police said. At least five others thought to be wounded there were taken by private vehicles and ambulances to various hospitals, police said. Police said Sunday that another person was wounded in a separate shooting blocks away at about 3 a.m. No additional information in that shooting has been released. Homicide detectives identified a person of interest in the shooting near the auto shop and took a man into custody in Grandview, Missouri, just after 5 p.m. Sunday, according to Officer Jacob Becchina, a police spokesperson. The man's name was not released, and no charges were reported by Monday morning. Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves joined people at the scene in a prayer circle as officers collected evidence.
KC Police Take Man into Custody in Connection with Fatal Shootings at 57th and Prospect
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KMBC) — After investigating throughout the day Sunday, police say a person of interest has been taken into custody regarding a fatal shooting that left three people dead and sent five more to the hospital. Kansas City police were called to investigate a shooting just after 4:30 am Sunday near 57th Street and Prospect Avenue. Police found three shooting victims in a parking lot and the street just south of the intersection. Those three victims, two men and one woman, died at the scene. At least five more shooting victims were treated at hospitals for non-life-threatening injuries. KMBC TV reports an adult man was taken into custody Sunday without incident for further investigation. The identity of the man taken into custody will only become public if charges are filed. Police say it appears there was a large gathering of people in the parking lot at the intersection when the victims were shot. The victims' identities and additional circumstances regarding the shooting have not yet been released by law enforcement.
(Earlier reporting...)
Sunday Morning Shooting in Kansas City Leaves 3 Dead, 5 Injured
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (CNN) — Kansas City police say at least three people were killed and five others were injured in a Sunday morning shooting. Around 4:30 am, police responded to a large gathering of people in a parking lot near 57th Street and Prospect Avenue. Arriving officers found found three people dead, two men and one woman. CNN reports that police later determined five other people had been wounded and taken to area hospitals. As of Sunday, no suspects had been arrested.
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Severe Storms Produce Tornadoes, Large Hail in Southwest Kansas
WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) — Severe storms that popped up in Colorado and roared into southwest Kansas Friday night dropped at least a couple tornadoes and dumped large hail, including baseball-sized stones in the town of Elkhart. KWCH TV reports that several severe storms rolled through an area along the state's border with Colorado and the Oklahoma panhandle. Tornadoes threatened Elkhart in southern Morton County and to the northeast in Grant County. A stove-pipe tornado prompted an alarm for people in Ulysses to take shelter. That threat subsided before the storm hit the town of more than 5,000 people. Another confirmed tornado touched down in a remote area north of Johnson City in Stanton County. Storms weakened as the night moved along with warnings dissipating after 10 pm.
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Overland Park Man Accused in Deadly Kansas Campground Attack
MIAMI COUNTY, Kan. (Hays Post) — Authorities investigating a deadly shooting at Hillsdale State Park have arrested a suspect. Miami County sheriff's deputies took 53-year-old Brian Meysenburg, of Overland Park, into custody last week on charges of second-degree murder. The Hays Post reports that Meysenburg is accused of fatally shooting 43-year-old Bryan Hendrickson, of Edgerton, at a campground at Hillsdale State Park near Paola. Deputies also found another victim at the scene who was suffering from stab wounds. That person was treated and released at an area hospital.
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KCK Police Investigate Teenager's Shooting Death
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (Hays Post) — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a fatal shooting that took the life of a teenager in Kansas City, Kansas. The shooting happened Friday afternoon (in the 3100 block of W. Barker Circle). Police were dispatched to the scene and and found the teenage boy with gunshot wounds. The Hays Post reports that the KCK Major Case Unit is investigating. No further details have been released.
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Convicted KCK Child Rapist To Be Released Because of Prosecutor’s Error
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (Yahoo News) — A Kansas City, Kansas, man sentenced to life in prison for raping two young children in 2019 will be freed because of errors made by the Wyandotte County District Attorney’s Office. Prosecutors say 36-year-old Josue Manuel Arita was found guilty of raping two children: a 7-year-old boy and an 8-year-old girl. Yahoo News reports that Arita was sentenced to two life terms. But because prosecutors charged him under the wrong subsections of the law, the Kansas Court of Appeals ruled the convictions must be overturned and the sentences vacated. The court also ruled that Arita could not be tried again. Prosecutors say they accept the court’s ruling. They also say the defendant, who's been in custody for almost four years, is subject to deportation and will be deported. As of Friday, Arita remained housed at the state prison in Hutchinson.
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El Dorado Prison Inmate Dies
TOPEKA, Kan. (KPR) – An inmate at the El Dorado Correctional Facility has died. The Kansas Department of Corrections says 31-year-old Nicholas Reimonenq was found unresponsive in his cell Saturday morning. An autopsy will be performed to determine his cause of death. Per protocol, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation will review the death. Reimonenq had been serving time since May for burglary in Saline County.
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AAA Kansas Warns About Leaving Children Inside Hot Cars
LAWRENCE, Kan. (KPR) — It's hot and getting hotter in Kansas. With recent rising temperatures, AAA Kansas is reminding motorists not to leave their children unattended in automobiles. Every year, children die because they were left inside a hot vehicle. AAA Kansas spokesman Shawn Steward said “One hundred percent of heatstroke deaths of children in cars are preventable.”
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Kansas City Groups Call for DOJ to Investigate Police Department
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (WDAF) — Community groups in Kansas City are renewing their push for the Department of Justice to investigate the Kansas City Police Department. Five groups (The Urban League, SCLC-KC, Westport Presbyterian Church, BlaqOut and the The Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity) made the original request two years ago. At that time, the groups reported the department showed a pattern of discrimination against Black and Brown people who live in Kansas City. According to WDAF TV, the groups say their issues with the police department have not improved since they initially complained to the DOJ in 2021.
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Class Action Lawsuit Filed over Jackson County Assessments
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) — A new class action lawsuit has been filed against Jackson County, Missouri, challenging the quality of its property tax assessments. The lawsuit calls into question if some increases are even legal considering some tax notices came in the mail after the June 15 deadline, as required by state statutes. The lawsuit is asking a judge to step in and offer relief. It also calls for a jury trial. KCTV reports that the lawsuit is critical of the methodology used by Jackson County to reach new property values. Numerous homeowners in Jackson County say they are shocked by the large property tax increases. Some are even questioning if they’ll be able to keep their homes.
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Home Prices Keep Rising but Cloud County Homes Remain Affordable
UNDATED (KPR) — Home prices just seem to keep going up. Within the last two years, real incomes have fallen under the weight of historic inflation. At the same time, the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes have sent mortgage rates soaring. While the demand from home buyers has fallen, home prices have not. According to the real estate website Realtor.com, the median list price for a home in the U.S. is a little more than $441,000. Thta's nearly 3% higher than it was a year ago. In Kansas, the statewide median list price for a home is nearly $322,000. While such prices are prohibitively high for most Americans, there are parts of the country where homes are selling for far less. Of the 63 counties in Kansas with available data from Realtor.com, Cloud County has the least expensive housing. As of May, the median list price for a home in Cloud County was $69,000.
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Following Reversal of Roe v. Wade, Number of Abortions in Kansas Increased
TOPEKA, Kan. (TCJ) — In the months following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, abortion bans in other states pushed women and girls to travel to Kansas, where the procedure remains legal. As a result, the Topeka Capital-Journal reports that the state's abortion numbers hit a 21-year high. According to statistics released Friday by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, women and girls from Oklahoma, Texas and Missouri turned to Kansas by the thousands. More than 12,300 abortions were performed in Kansas in 2022. That's a 57% increase from the year before.
Kansas politicians have not pursued an abortion ban because of the Kansas Supreme Court's decision that held the state constitution protects the right to an abortion. Last August, voters rejected the proposed Value Them Both constitutional amendment that would have opened the door for lawmakers to pass more abortion restrictions or perhaps even a ban on the procedure.
For the first time in four years, the state reported an abortion at or after 22 weeks gestation. That is the point an abortion is considered late-term under state law. This abortion was performed on an out-of-state resident with a nonviable pregnancy. Kansas also reported 300 abortions where the patient was a child, including 10 girls who were younger than 14, which would constitute statutory rape. Planned Parenthood opened a new abortion clinic in Kansas City, Kansas, last summer intended to help meet the demand from out-of-state patients. More abortion statistics are available online from the KDHE's public health division.
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Kansas Board of Regents to Consider Cutting Some College Programs
TOPEKA, Kan. (KNS) — The board that oversees Kansas universities has set a timeline to review and potentially cut some academic programs. Over the summer, Kansas Board of Regents staff members will make a list of undergraduate programs that are more than five years old and do not meet two of four metrics for success. They’ll look at how many students are enrolled in the major, how many get degrees, whether graduates find jobs in the region, and how much they make. This fall, universities will look at underperforming programs and decide whether to cut or merge them, or develop a plan for improvement. As the Kansas Board of Regents looks to restructure university programs, college enrollment continues to decline across the U.S.
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Non-Binary Artist to Perform at Sedgwick County Fair
WICHITA, Kan. (KNS) — A non-binary artist will perform at a county fair near Wichita this summer, even after receiving negative online feedback. The Sedgwick County Fair board hired Hunter Gromala to sing pop covers at the fair on July 12. But when the fair posted about the performance, negative comments poured in about Gromala’s gender identity. Gromala uses they/them pronouns and identifies as nonbinary. The fair board then asked Gromala to share their set list. After a meeting last week, the board posted on Facebook that Gromala would perform. Gromala hopes the publicity will help the public better understand the meaning of nonbinary. "I think we can all agree that I was hired as a musician based off my talent and not my gender. And I think both sides are just like who cares? And I’m like exactly," they said. In the Facebook post, the board emphasized that the set list is family friendly and not a drag show or sexually explicit in any way.
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Kansas Highway Patrol: Extra Caution Needed on Roads During Harvest Season
TOPEKA, Kan. (KPR) — It's nearly harvest season and the Kansas Highway Patrol is reminding motorists to use extra caution when traveling near farm trucks, tractors, combines and other implements. State troopers are also asking motorists to be patient when encountering heavy farm implements and trucks moving in and out of wheat fields and on to roadways. Most farm equipment is not designed to travel at highway speeds and may only travel 15-25 mph. Farm equipment is often wider than the lane of traffic, so extra room should be allowed when sharing the road. Caution should be practiced on all roads, but especially on busy rural roads with unmarked intersections. The Highway Patrol also advises motorists not to pass farm vehicles unless they can see clearly ahead of their own vehicle and the vehicle they are passing. (Read more.)
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For Some States with Laws on Transgender Bathroom Restrictions, Officials May Not Know How They Will Be Enforced
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — When North Dakota restricted what bathrooms transgender students can use in public schools and universities this year, the school district in the state's largest city promised to ignore the new rules. A Republican legislator then called for confiscating its state funding, but the law doesn't include that possibility.
The defiance in Fargo shows that it's not exactly clear how bathroom laws will play out in local communities after being enacted in at least 10 states with Republican-controlled legislatures.
Kansas' GOP attorney general planned to discuss his state's law Monday, five days before it was to take effect. His view is likely to be challenged.
Even Florida's law, allowing the state to threaten the licenses of educators who don't comply, says a transgender student or staffer must first be asked to leave a restroom and refuse.
Some schools already have gender-neutral bathrooms and changing spaces or allow trans students to use staff restrooms. In others, trans students try to make it through the day without using a restroom.
Advocates for transgender people worry that bullying will increase.
“Especially in smaller towns where, say, that bullying could be really bad because transgender individuals are really misunderstood,” said Caedmon Marx, outreach chair for LGBTQ+ advocacy group Dakota OutRight and a 23-year-old nonbinary Bismarck State University student.
While the laws focus mostly on transgender students, critics believe they also encourage harassment of trans adults at work and while they're shopping and eating out — and even harassment of cisgender people, or those whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth.
“By men, I get harassed for going into a women’s restroom because people think that — the way I look, the way I dress, they way my hair is — that I’m a man,” Kansas state Rep. Susan Ruiz, a Kansas City-area Democrat and a lesbian, said during a debate over the Kansas bathroom measure. “This is going to just open up the doors for that.”
North Carolina Republicans enacted a bathroom law in 2016, but rolled it back following protests and economic boycotts. A new wave of anti-LGBTQ+ measures began building in 2020, when Idaho enacted the nation's first law barring transgender athletes from girls and women's sports. State lawmakers across the U.S. considered hundreds of proposals this year.
Supporters argue that bathroom laws protect the privacy of cisgender women and girls. They've also pitched the laws as safety measures, without evidence of threats or assaults by transgender people against cisgender women or girls.
In North Dakota, Republican state Rep. Robin Weisz, chair of a committee that handled bathroom legislation, said some lawmakers worried about "being taken over by a radical agenda” on gender identity.
A GOP colleague, state Rep. Bill Tveit, said: "Our whole society is catering to it and encouraging it, and I don’t think that that’s where we’re at, nor should be.”
States' laws vary in their sweep. Florida and North Dakota are applying their restrictions to state universities and prisons. Arkansas is making it a misdemeanor for transgender adults to be in any public changing room associated with their gender identities if a minor is present and the purpose is “arousing or gratifying a sexual desire.” Kansas' law applies not just to restrooms and locker rooms, but to rape crisis centers, domestic violence shelters, prisons and other detention centers.
State laws also differ in what they say about enforcement.
If an Oklahoma school violates that state's 2022 law, its district can lose 5% of its state funding, though none have so far.
Florida schools and universities must have policies for punishing students who don't comply, and educators who flout the law could risk losing their state licenses. Starting in July 2024, the state attorney general can sue schools that don't comply.
Arkansas mandates a minimum fine of $1,000 for defiant educators, and Iowa residents can file complaints with the state's attorney general. Arkansas, Idaho, Oklahoma and Tennessee allow private lawsuits against schools.
But laws in Alabama, Kansas, Kentucky and North Dakota don't spell out any enforcement regime.
Transgender, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming people and LGBTQ-rights advocates predict that states will rely on “vigilante” enforcement by private individuals. Sarah Warbelow, legal director for the Human Rights Campaign, expects lawsuits from people “dedicated to making life impossible for transgender people.”
All of the laws permit schools and other institutions to make special accommodations for trans students, such as providing gender-neutral bathrooms, so long as they aren't allowed into facilities associated with their gender identities.
In Kansas' largest school district in Wichita, schools already have worked with individual students and their parents to make accommodations. In northeast Iowa, the Decorah school district sought guidance on what the signs outside its single-use restrooms should say.
“We're following the law,” Superintendent Tim Cronin said. “We're not trying to editorialize on any of this.”
In Des Moines, Iowa, the school district already had been preparing for a bathroom law for several years and “the facilities were in place” when the state's law was enacted, spokesman Phil Roeder said. The Shawnee Mission district in the affluent Kansas suburbs of Kansas City is adding gender-neutral restrooms, too, with most of the work completed.
But in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Al Stone-Gebhardt, an 18-year-old transgender man, recently graduated from a high school that didn't have gender-neutral restrooms. After using the girls restroom during his junior year, he planned to use the nurse's but was turned away the first day of his senior year.
His mother, Erika DuBose, acknowledged “flipping out” when her son texted her about it. She sent an email to school staff that demanded, “HOW DARE YOU DENY MY CHILD THEIR BIOLOGICAL NEEDS?" To avoid using any restroom at school, her son was wasn't eating or drinking much.
The school became more accommodating, they said.
“It is literally putting trans students at risk,” Stone-Gebhardt said. “Having to choose between being hydrated and being outed is extremely traumatic and inherently problematic as well.”
Warbelow said states can expect some “civil disobedience."
In the liberal community of Lawrence in northeast Kansas, the home of the University of Kansas' main campus, the local district attorney declared that she wouldn't prosecute violations of the new state law.
And in Fargo, one of North Dakota's rare politically blue places, the school board backed Superintendent Rupak Gandhi's public statement that, "We will not participate in anything that we think is going to subject students to further discrimination or increase their self-harm.”
That prompted Tveit to email fellow state lawmakers, suggesting the district lose its state funding. But North Dakota's Legislature won't be in session again until 2025.
“I think any law that goes into place needs a specific penalty,” Tveit said, “because without a specific penalty, then you have this defiance.”
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This summary of area news is curated by KPR news staffers, including J. Schafer, Laura Lorson, Tom Parkinson and Kaye McIntyre. Our headlines are generally posted by 10 am weekdays and updated throughout the day. These ad-free headlines are made possible by KPR members. Become one today. And follow KPR News on Twitter.