Latest news with #Kansan
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
ACLU sues over Kansas law banning gender-affirming care for minors
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of Kansas on Wednesday that was passed – blocking gender-affirming care for minors. The lawsuit was filed in Douglas County on behalf of two transgender adolescents and their parents, who say the new law violates the Kansas Constitution's guarantees of equal protection and fundamental rights. Missouri Supreme Court temporarily reinstates abortion ban In February, Kansas became the 27th state to ban or restrict such care when GOP lawmakers reversed Gov. Laura Kelly's veto after President Donald Trump issued an order barring federal support for gender-affirming care for youth under 19. Gov. Kelly vetoed the bill on Feb. 11, saying it's inappropriate for politicians to infringe on parental rights. One week later, on Feb. 18, the veto was reversed. The ACLU lawsuit was filed on behalf of a 16-year-old and his mother, as well as a 13-year-old and her mother. 'Our clients and every Kansan should have the freedom to make their own private medical decisions and consult with their doctors without the intrusion of Kansas politicians,' said D.C. Hiegert, Civil Liberties Legal Fellow for the ACLU of Kansas. Supporters of such bans argue that they protect vulnerable children from what they see as 'radical' ideology about gender – and from making irreversible medical decisions too young. Download WDAF+ for Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV The Kansas law prohibits puberty blockers, hormone therapies and/or surgery for minors diagnosed with gender dysphoria who are trying to transition away from the gender assigned to them at birth. State employees caring for children are not allowed to provide or encourage such treatment—nor are they allowed to encourage 'social transitioning.' The law allows these same treatments to be provided to cisgender youth for any other reason. Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach released a statement in response to the lawsuit: 'I look forward to meeting the ACLU in court and defending our Kansas law. Once again, the ACLU is attempting to twist the meaning of the Kansas Constitution into something unrecognizable. The Kansas Legislature was well within its authority when it acted to protect Kansas children from these harmful surgeries.' The Associated Press contributed to this story. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Kansas trans kids file lawsuit over new law banning gender-affirming care
Kansans rally in support of transgender rights May 5, 2023, at the Statehouse in Topeka. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector) TOPEKA — Two transgender teenagers and their parents are challenging a new Kansas law that bans gender-affirming care for minors. The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and the national ACLU filed a lawsuit Wednesday in Douglas County District Court on behalf of a 16-year-old trans boy and a 13-year-old trans girl. The lawsuit argues the new law violates state constitutional rights for equal protection, personal autonomy, and parenting. Senate Bill 63 prohibits health care providers from using surgery, hormones or puberty blockers to treat anyone younger than 18 who identifies with a gender that is different from the sex they were assigned at birth. Health care providers who break the law may be subject to civil penalties and stripped of their license. The ACLU is seeking an injunction to block enforcement of the law while the case is being litigated. 'Every Kansan should have the freedom to make their own private medical decisions and consult with their doctors without the intrusion of Kansas politicians,' said D.C. Hiegert, a legal fellow for the ACLU of Kansas. 'SB 63 is a particularly harmful example of politicians' overreach and their efforts to target, politicize, and control the health care of already vulnerable Kansas families.' The GOP-led Legislature passed SB 63 and overrode a veto by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly earlier this year, ignoring overwhelming opposition from Kansas social workers, teachers, medical providers and members of the LGBTQ+ community who said gender-affirming care saves lives by acknowledging and supporting vulnerable kids for who they are. The lawsuit points to medical guidance established by the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society and others surrounding gender identity, gender expression, and gender dysphoria. The guidelines require medical providers to confirm a minor has demonstrated a long-lasting and intense pattern of gender nonconformity, that the condition worsened with the onset of puberty, that coexisting psychological or social problems have been addressed, and that the patient has sufficient mental capacity to provide informed consent. Both of the plaintiffs, the lawsuit says, identified from a young age with a gender other than their sex assigned at birth. They are identified by pseudonyms. The family of the 16-year-old boy, who lives in Johnson County, moved from Texas to Kansas in 2022 to escape a rise in anti-trans legislation. When he started going through puberty, he 'could not stand the feminine aspects of his body,' the lawsuit says. A therapist and medical providers diagnosed him with gender dysphoria and recommended hormone therapy, because he had already started going through puberty. Now that he is taking testosterone, the lawsuit says, 'he is more comfortable in his body, and happier,' and he has 'blossomed at school and in his social life.' The 13-year-old girl, who lives in Douglas County, has lived as a girl since second grade. She legally changed her name in 2020 and changed the gender designation on her birth certificate in 2023. After consulting with doctors in 2024, she decided puberty blockers were the right choice to benefit her mental health, the lawsuit says. As soon as she received her first shot last year, at age 12, she 'literally started dancing,' the lawsuit says. 'She felt such enormous relief from no longer needing to worry about puberty, and had so much less fear,' the lawsuit says. 'The puberty blocking shots let her be herself, happy, and carefree.' She has not had any negative side effects from the shots, which last about six months, the lawsuit says. But her last shot was in November, and her next shot was supposed to be in late May. If she waits more than a few weeks, the lawsuit says, the medication will stop working. The lawsuit says both families have looked for care in other states as a result of the new law. Harper Seldin, senior staff attorney for the ACLU's LGBTQ and HIV Project, said all transgender Kansans should have the freedom to be themselves. 'Bans like SB 63 have already had catastrophic effects on the families of transgender youth across the country,' Seldin said. 'These bans have uprooted many families from the only homes they've ever known while forcing many more to watch their young people suffer knowing a politician stands between them and their family doctor's best medical judgment.' In addition to banning gender-affirming care, SB 63 bans the use of state funds for mental health care for transgender children, bans state employees from promoting 'social transitioning,' which is defined to include the use of preferred pronouns, and outlaws liability insurance for damages related to gender-affirming care. The model legislation, labeled the 'Help Not Harm Act,' was supported by faith-based anti-LGBTQ+ groups in and outside of Kansas. When the Legislature overrode the governor's veto in February, Brittany Jones, director of policy and engagement for Kansas Family Voice, said lawmakers voted on the side of 'common sense.' 'Every child deserves to be loved and protected — not manipulated into making life-altering decisions by individuals who profit off of those decisions,' Jones said. 'We celebrate this new day in Kansas in which Kansas children are protected.'
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Kansas and America share important history with apartheid and the nation of South Africa
Former senator Nancy Kassebaum served as chairwoman of the Senate Subcommittee on African Affairs and helped develop sanctions against the apartheid regime of South Africa. (Thad Allton for Kansas Reflector) During my 1980s college years, our student group urged the university to divest from any South African interests. Many campuses nationwide saw students protesting that country's legalized system of racial oppression, apartheid. In that era, roughly 30 years from the civil rights movement, the fight against apartheid had gained traction in politics and in popular culture. The 1985 protest song 'Sun City' played on a loop on video music shows, while President Reagan seemingly coddled the regime. Most people, however, may have forgotten the role of Kansas and the United States in this winding human rights saga. First, some perspective. White South Africans represent 7 percent of the population but own 72 percent of the land. Black South Africans represent 81 percent of the population but own 4 percent of the land. White South Africans are not oppressed, though the late comedian Robin Williams once rhetorically asked the white minority there: 'Does the name Custer mean anything to you?' Apartheid, which means 'apartness,' mirrored American racial segregation. A person's race determined where people could live, where they could work, and whom they could marry. This month, President Trump ambushed South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during a White House meeting, peddling a false narrative of 'white genocide' there. Trump, while aggressively deporting immigrants of color, recently welcomed 59 white South Africans who he claimed were fleeing oppression. If there is a genocide, why are only 59 people trying to escape it? It's important to note that truth matters little to this president. What is important is the continued building of a false, white grievance narrative for his base. He's reassuring them that he's for them. Always. The more news media press him about this, the deeper and wider his base's roots of loyalty strengthen and spread. Nevertheless, Kansas and America had an interesting connection with South Africa, apartheid, and with the jailing and eventual release of Nelson Mandela, who would eventually rule the nation that imprisoned him. Former U.S. Sen. Nancy Kassabaum, then chairwoman of the Senate Subcommittee on African Affairs, helped develop sanctions against the apartheid regime. President Regan vetoed the legislation, but Congress overrode his veto. The sanctions, along with international pressure, helped dismantle that system. A Kansan stood watch over apartheid on its deathbed. President Clinton dispatched Ronald Walters, the noted political science expert and co-architect of the historic Dockum sit-in, to South Africa to monitor elections that would spell the end of apartheid. Walters, also an architect of the Congressional Black Caucus, knew Mandela, who phoned the Walters' home in 2010 after Walters died. Another Kansan, Gretchen Eick, now a retired professor of history and award-winning author, lobbied against apartheid for 30 years and was part of the final 1986 passage of comprehensive sanctions over Reagan's veto. 'A stunning experience!' Eick wrote via email. Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, who researched apartheid as a Harvard student in the 1980s, told The Wichita Eagle years ago that he'd grown interested in South Africa because its issues had reached that campus. Kobach said then that he didn't oppose sanctions, but he thought disinvestment removed American companies from fight. Those companies, he said, could form a powerful anti-apartheid bloc. He reportedly wrote his senior thesis at Harvard about how South African businesses had become politicized. Kobach based that report, for which he won a campus award, on research conducted during a 1987 visit there. Harvard professor Samuel Huntington advised Kobach's work, and reportedly believed South Africa should pursue a 'policy of simultaneous reform and repression,' said a review in The Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper. Black South Africans faced brutal repression, and the U.S., under President Kennedy, helped imprison Mandela. NPR, in a 2016 interview with a former CIA official, reported Mandela's 1962 capture happened because of a U.S. tip to South African officials. That capture and arrest led to Mandela's nearly 28-year imprisonment. According to Time magazine, when the South African government released Mandela in 1990, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution quoted a 'senior CIA operative' regarding Mandela's capture. Within hours of Mandela's arrest, operative Paul Eckel said: 'We have turned Mandela over to the South African security branch. We gave them every detail, what he would be wearing, the time of day, just where he would be. They have picked him up. It is one of our greatest coups.' Our country played dual roles in Mandela's life. It delivered him to his captors but also lobbied South Africa not to hang him for treason and later applied political and economic pressure to end apartheid. And our 'Free State,' played a small role in Mandela's and in that nation's liberation. Mark McCormick is the former executive director of The Kansas African American Museum, a member of the Kansas African American Affairs Commission and former deputy executive director at the ACLU of Kansas. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Why didn't Kansas lawmakers slash property taxes like they said they would?
What Happened to Property Tax Cuts? It all seemed so easy back in January. Delivering property tax relief and reform for Kansan homeowners was atop every Kansas legislator's list as if Moses himself was delivering them on stone tablets from Mount Sinai. An expanded Republican supermajority, riding high off November's victory party rhetoric, blustered that property taxes were job No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3. Senate President Ty Masterson chiseled it to the very top of his GOP tablets, daring Gov. Laura Kelly's compliance. And when three property tax bills passed out of committee within the first weeks of the session, it appeared the mountain was moving to Moses just as promised. Three months later, Moses came back down with broken tablets and a t-shirt, 'I went to the mountain top and all I got were these crummy 1.5 mills.' So, what in the holy land happened? ▪ Lawmakers grossly oversold their agency — It shouldn't be a big secret by now that the state can only be so transformative with property taxes. They controlled a miniscule one percent — 1.5 mills — portion of your property tax bill for state and university building maintenance. In the end, it was the only unilateral thing they could play with and eliminated it to their credit. The fact it only saves $35 on a $200,000 house is a kick in the shins to vulnerable homeowners. Other bills like HB 2011 and the Dems SB 217 targeted the other portion of your bill under State auspices — 20 mills for local schools — but the juice was not worth the squeeze. ▪ Dueling chambers — For some reason, the Senate revived the same 3% cap on property value increases the House rejected last year. House leaders rejected it again, calling the constitutional amendment gimmicky, given that it doesn't force cities to cut any property tax. Instead, the House deftly proposed an innovative $60 million fund to incentivize local governments to lower property taxes (HB 2396/ASTRA fund). One stick. One carrot. One philosophical logjam. ▪ The well is running dry — As time wore on, enough lawmakers realized they were either unwilling, or unable, to cash checks they'd have to write for property tax relief. This session came on the heels of a massive signature $1.3 billion tax cut in 2024, including twice as much property tax relief. Don't forget, for every dollar of property tax relief they had to backfill with an equal dollar of income/sales tax revenue so schools and public building maintenance didn't' suffer. With the specter of state coffers going red by 2028, the well is drying up like the Ogallala aquifer. ▪ The flat tax 'okey doke' — With everyone spellbound on property taxes, Republican leaders pulled a classic 'okey doke' ball fake very late in the session, by slipping past a Kelly veto block to deliver a phased-in 4% flat income tax. Kelly proclaimed it the 'kiss of death for the Kansas budget' as it sucked the well even drier for property tax relief and unmasked conservatives true colors putting income tax cuts first. In the end, there was no Promised Land. But maybe that's the lesson. The State will not part the Red Sea meddling with mill rates. Not now. The real issue, and their real power, lies in property assessment reform which they control through Kansas statutes and the county appraisal system. That's a talk they could walk. Bill Fiander is a lecturer at Washburn University in Topeka, specializing in public administration, urban planning, and state/local government.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Kansas rabbis mourn death of KU grad and Israeli Embassy staff member
TOPEKA (KSNT) – Many people are mourning the death of Sarah Milgrim, a Kansan and Israeli Embassy staff member who was shot and killed alongside her boyfriend in Washington D.C on Wednesday. Many people are feeling shock, grief, devastation and other emotions in the aftermath of the killings. It comes after Sarah Milgrim and her boyfriend Yaron Lischinsky were killed in a shooting outside of the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington D.C. on May 21. The suspect, identified as 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez, has been charged with murder. Video from the incident shows Rodriguez yelling 'Free, free Palestine' as he was taken into custody. Visa denied for man trying to get to son's funeral in Kansas 'They were willing to work in such a job that shouldn't have been dangerous,' said Rabbi Samuel Stern of Topeka's Temple Beth Sholom. 'They were willing to work in such a job, but they didn't do it to give their lives. They weren't supposed to give their lives for the American-Jewish community or the State of Israel.' Milgrim attended the University of Kansas and spent much of her time at the Chabad House before heading off to work for the Israeli Embassy in the nation's capital. 'She would come celebrate here behind me in the old space that we had,' said Rabbi Zalman Tiechtel with Chabad at KU. 'She would celebrate Shabbat dinners, holidays, just come together as a community. She had a special smile and a warmth. She brought people together. She dedicated her life to peace, love and bringing people together.' Kansas gov. orders flags to fly at half-staff on Monday, here's why The Chabad center in Lawrence reopens in the fall of 2025, with Milgrim's memorial inside for people to pay respects and remember her. Members of the community in Kansas City also held a vigil for the couple Thursday evening. For more local news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
