Rabbi Moti Rieber watches law enforcement as they confront protesters March 10, 2026, outside the Senate chamber in the Kansas Statehouse. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
TOPEKA — Rabbi Moti Rieber sat on the tiled floor, legs akimbo, in front of the arched passage leading to the Kansas Senate chamber with at least 20 people behind him and more lining the walls with handmade signs.
“We are here because when injustice becomes law, then resistance is necessary,” Rieber said. “We are here as moral witnesses.”
Clergy members led a sit-in protest Tuesday in opposition to a recently passed anti-trans law. The Republican-controlled Legislature used tactics to avoid public input and overrode the governor’s veto to pass Senate Bill 244, requiring people in public buildings to use the bathroom that coincides with their biological sex and also mandating driver’s licenses include a person’s sex assigned at birth instead of their gender.
Sergeants-at-arms looked on from behind the group, and Kansas Highway Patrol troopers soon joined. But it wasn’t until the group prevented Sen. Tim Shallenburger, R-Baxter Springs, from entering the chamber that troopers grabbed people by the arms to clear a path.
As troopers hoisted activists up from their seats, encouraging them to disperse, the group sang in harmony: “No one is getting left behind this time. No one is getting left behind. No one is getting left behind this time. We get there together or never get there at all.”
At one point, a trooper knocked a woman to the ground as she tried to pass through the crowd, appearing to mistake her as part of the demonstration. Protesters responded with chants of “Shame!”
The woman declined to be identified or comment but told Kansas Reflector she was OK.
Rieber, executive director of Kansas Interfaith Action, said while sitting on the floor, addressing the crowd, that the process to pass SB 244 was “crooked.” (There is a TikTok embedded on the page, linked in the title above.)
The law has already been challenged in Douglas County District Court, where a judge decided Tuesday not to pause enforcement of the law. The state sent letters to 275 Kansans shortly before the law went into effect, telling them their driver’s licenses were invalid. Some experts say laws targeting trans people can harm their mental health and increase the likelihood of discrimination.
The Rev. Mandy Todd, pastor at Messiah Lutheran Church in Lindsborg, said SB 244 is hurtful, targeted and part of a culture war. She said the group is “disgusted by this Legislature’s treatment of trans people.”
The bill stokes fear and anxiety, she said.
Todd, the director of engagement for Kansas Interfaith Action, said trans people in her community have felt the immediate effects of SB 244. The closest driver’s license office is in the next town, which Todd said has hamstrung one Lindsborg woman, who now cannot legally drive to sort out her invalid license.
Pastor Charles McKinzie II of Grace United Methodist Church in Winfield is confident the law, which he said was flawed in process and in substance, will make its way to the Kansas Supreme Court to be overturned.
“In the meantime, people are hurting, and people need to know that they are seen,” McKinzie said.
Conversations about the effects of SB 244 aren’t limited to a courtroom. They are taking place in churches, synagogues and other small group settings across the state, McKinzie said, and the sit-in was meant as a show of nonviolence “to shed light on a violent system.”
About an hour after the protest, Master Trooper Scott Whitsell said that no one from the group had been cited or arrested to his knowledge. The only law the protestors broke was blocking an entryway, he said.
(Well, another one!) I watched part of Sherri Shepherd’s interview of Jayne Kennedy yesterday morning. I didn’t catch the beginning, but recognized the name earlier when I read it. I looked her up, and found the following from BET, and that’s the post. In addition to what’s included, Jayne Kennedy seems to be living with depressive anxiety, from what I gleaned in the Sherri interview. I couldn’t find anything about that, but she’s written a book, Plain Jayne that I intend to read as soon as I can. From this article, I figured out how I recognized her name and her face; I recall when she was in the Miss USA pageant in the late 1970s. Then I recalled she got a job on some sports show, as covered below. Anyway, this woman, aside from being talented and beautiful, is also courageous. Follow the links within for more information.
Explore the multifaceted journey of the Emmy-winning trailblazer who transitioned from Hollywood to the NFL, changing the game forever.
By Tamara Brown March 9, 2026
NEW YORK – JANUARY 1: Jayne Kennedy and Brent Musburger on “N.F.L. Today,” on the CBS Sports television network. Circa 1978.
In the late 1970s, the network TV sports was a club where the doors were mostly locked to anyone who wasn’t white and male. But Jayne Kennedy didn’t just knock; she blasted those doors off the hinges.
As we continue our Women’s History Month spotlight, we’re looking back at the woman who, in 1978, became the first Black woman to co-host a major national sports program. When Kennedy stepped into the anchor chair on CBS’s The NFL Today, she did more than just read highlights.
Jayne Kennedy, now 74, held that ground-breaking role from 1978 to 1980, quickly becoming one of the most recognizable faces in the country. Before her history-making run at CBS, the former Miss Ohio USA was already a star. She got her start as a dancer on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In and spent years touring with legends like Bob Hope and Dean Martin.
While her Hollywood resume is long, her impact on the sports world is what truly changed the culture. Beyond the NFL, Kennedy remains the only woman to host the long-running series Greatest Sports Legends. She even stepped into the ring as the first female color commentator for men’s professional boxing.
Even now, Kennedy isn’t slowing down. She was a key player in the LA28 Foundation, helping secure the bid for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. She’s also sharing her full story in her new memoir, Plain Jayne, which dives into the grit, faith, and ambition it took to navigate a career filled with hurdles.
By breaking that ceiling nearly 50 years ago, Kennedy didn’t just make a name for herself. She made sure that for the rest of us, the path was already paved with the excellence she brought to the screen every Sunday.
Think of all the public safety nets we have lost this year. Slashing Medicare for the poor, cutting the ACA subsidies, ending food programs for poor kids, and ending heating assistance for the elderly. We also lost funding for education. Noem before she got fired ordered three planes for her personal use inclusing a luxury jet with a bar and bed. Hugs
This caller is a well know immegration lawyer who calls in often. There has been a long running joke about the buttons on Sam’s shirts so ignore that part. The lawyer talks about what ICE is doing to help the detained people and he describes how horrific the conditions are. The goal is to make it so horrific these people will self-deport willingly. But the government is doing everything possible to hurt and harm the immigrants and detained people because of hate and bigotry of ICE and the white supremacists in the US government. Hugs
Her real crime was exercising her 1st amendment right to report negatively on ICE and the higher crime of doing it in spanish a language I would say most ICE couldn’t understand. She committed no crime and remember what DHS, Tom Lyons, Stephen Miller, and Bovino keep telling us they are only going after the worst of the worst criminals. Again look at my first sentence to see her worst of the worst crime. It is flat out racism and genocide of brown people in and name of creating a white ethnostate with an entrenched apartheid system. These people say they want people to come here legally but she is here legally. Hugs
A reporter for a Spanish-language news outlet in Tennessee who has been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was not shown any warrant when she was arrested this week, according to court documents filed by her attorney.
Estefany Rodriguez Florez, a reporter for Nashville Noticias who has done stories critical of ICE, was arrested Wednesday during a traffic stop, according to documents filed in federal court in Nashville. Her lawyer called for her immediate release, but ICE has asked a judge to deny the request.
Rodriguez, a Colombian citizen, entered the U.S lawfully and has been living in the country for the past five years, court records filed by her lawyer show. She has a valid work permit, and she has applied for political asylum and legal status through her husband, who is a U.S. citizen.
Rodriguez has said she left Colombia after receiving death threats for her coverage of crime in the region, according to a statement from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. The association said it “denounces immigration tactics that detain journalists and any efforts to interfere with news coverage of immigration enforcement.”
Rodriguez was with her husband in a marked Nashville Noticias vehicle when it was surrounded by several other vehicles and she was taken to a detention center, the news outlet said in a statement.
A court filing Friday by a lawyer for ICE said an arrest warrant had been issued for Rodriguez on Monday and her visa authorizing her to stay in the U.S. had expired. The filing said her arrest and detention “are not in violation of any laws or regulations.” ICE spokesperson Melissa Egan said Rodriguez was arrested during a “targeted enforcement operation” and she will remain in custody as her case proceeds through court.
Court documents filed by Rodriguez’s lawyer said that her attorney, Joel Coxander, spoke to an ICE agent who indicated that there was no arrest warrant for her at the time of her arrest. When she was arrested, Rodriguez was only shown an immigration document telling her to appear before ICE, according to the documents.
Rodriguez’s lawyer said in court documents that ICE had twice rescheduled a meeting with Rodriguez on her case, first because the office was closed during a winter storm and the second time because an agent couldn’t find her appointment in the system.
A new meeting was then set for March 17.
Rodriguez joined Nashville Noticias in 2022, covering social, family, health, police and immigration issues, the news outlet’s statement said.
“She needs to reunite with her young daughter and husband to continue her legal process within the framework permitted by law,” the statement said.
___
This story has been corrected to show the reporter’s second surname is Florez, not Flores as her attorneys initially said in a court filing.
The point is both cruelty and wiping trans people from public society. The not only don’t understand being trans, don’t feel trans so it must not be real, and being transgender seems to upset their god they feel. Their god created the trans person trans but that doesn’t fit with the world view of these Christians. So if their god is not powerful enough to get rid of trans people then the entire LGBTQ+ they will do it for him. Sound like they created god in their image rather than being in his. Hugs
A trans Kansas resident recently changed her name but not her gender marker on her license, fearing what Kansas may do if she did. The Kansas DMV still flagged her ID.
by Nate Zuke
Andrea Ellis of Wellington, KS was one of many transgender Kansans who opened her mail on February 25 to learn that in less than 24 hours, her driver’s license would be invalid. The letter, issued by the Kansas Department of Revenue, informed her that because House Substitute for Senate Bill 244 (S.B. 244) “requires Kansas-issued driver’s license and identification cards to reflect the credential holder’s sex at birth,” her current license would become “invalid immediately” on February 26.
Ellis had been following the news closely in the past few months. She knew S.B. 244 would be going into effect. But she never expected the state to send her a letter invalidating her license.
That’s because Ellis had never changed the sex marker on her license in the first place.
Ellis last updated her driver’s license on January 7, 2026, after completing a legal name change in December 2025. Fearing her license would be revoked if she updated her sex marker, she deliberately held off on doing so.
“I saw the writing on the wall after listening to [Attorney General] Kobach’s testimony for H.B. 2426,” she said. H.B. 2426, containing the original transphobic legislation sponsored by Republican Kansas Representative Susan Humphries, would later be repurposed as S.B. 244 using the Kansas State Legislature’s “gut and go” trick. This allowed legislators to strip the original contents of S.B. 244, replace it with the contents of H.B. 2426, and pass S.B. 244 without giving the public time to weigh in, dodging accountability for the bill’s contents.
Most bills being passed during this session of the Kansas Legislature won’t go into effect until July 1, 2026. S.B. 244, however, contains a provision that allowed it to go into effect as soon as it was published in the Kansas Register, the state newspaper of record, on February 26. This tactic echoed 2025, when the Kansas Legislature made the same maneuver with Senate Bill 63 to rapidly ban gender-affirming care for minors in Kansas.
On February 25, transgender Kansans like Ellis started receiving letters in the mail informing them that as of February 26, their licenses would be rendered invalid. With no grace period, many recipients of these letters found themselves with less than 24 hours to figure out what to do in a rural state where driving is necessary for most people.
Ellis was confused about the letter she received, but felt as though she had no choice but to comply. She spends nearly an hour and a half each day driving to and from her job in Park City. Thursdays are one of her days off, so she didn’t have to call out of work on the 26th to go to the DMV. Still, having to suddenly get a new driver’s license was extremely inconvenient, as it would be for anyone.
“Wellington doesn’t have a DMV, so when I got the letter in the mail, I had to decide between going to the DMV in Winfield or the DMV in Derby,” said Ellis. Both locations were over thirty minutes away.
When Ellis left her house on Thursday morning, her license was officially invalid. She couldn’t comply with the new law unless she was able to get to a DMV, but in order to get to the DMV, she was forced to break the law. Every minute she was on the road, she was at risk of being arrested, jailed, or fined. Fortunately, she reached her destination without any trouble.
Once Ellis arrived at the DMV, she presented the letter to a confused employee. “It seemed like none of the DMV staff had any idea what was going on. I don’t think there was time for them to have any training on how to handle the SB244 stuff,” Ellis said. After presenting her letter, she was forced to surrender the license she had been issued less than two months ago and watch as the DMV employee cut a large chunk out of it, rendering it officially invalid. Her altered license was returned to her alongside her new temporary paper license. Both credentials designated her sex as “M.”
Paper license in hand, Ellis got in her car and started driving northeast to El Dorado, a town roughly 40 minutes away. “With a background like mine, I have to do something when there’s a crisis going on. I can’t just sit still,” Ellis said, referencing her past military service and reflecting on her deployments to Afghanistan. That morning, Equality El Dorado, the town’s local LGBTQ+ organization, had posted on Facebook asking for volunteers to help drive trans Kansans to the DMV, as well as cash donations to help people cover the unexpected cost of a replacement license. Other organizations, such as the LGBTQ Foundation of Kansas, also sprung into action to try and help transgender community members.
Ellis was ready to pitch in once she arrived in El Dorado, but she was stopped in her tracks. When she parked her car and checked her phone, she learned the Derby DMV had called her and left a message requesting that she come back to the DMV as soon as she could. Apparently, there was a problem with the new license she had just been issued. She tried to call the DMV back to get more information, but no one answered her calls. Frustrated, she got back in her car, canceled a doctor’s appointment she had scheduled for later that afternoon, and resigned herself to the fact that she was going to have to spend the majority of her day off at the DMV.
The DMV employee had to call a manager over for assistance, and Ellis waited patiently as the DMV staff tried to solve the issue. “They didn’t tell me what the problem was, but I overheard them saying there was a ‘flag’ tied to my ID in their system that they had to remove,” Ellis explained. Eventually, she was given another temporary paper license. Just like the license that had been cut up that morning, just like the first temporary paper license she had been issued as a replacement, and just like her original Alabama birth certificate, the sex marker printed on her newest paper license identified her as “M.”
By the time Ellis met up with me at Pennant Coffee/Good Company in Wichita, a local queer spot, a coffee shop by day and bar by evening, she’d driven a total of over 131 miles and spent close to three hours on the road. Sitting at Pennant, surrounded by pride flag decorations and chatting with the visibly queer and trans staff, it felt surreal to think that we were in one of the worst states in the U.S. to be transgender. But Ellis’s story proved the extent the state was willing to go to torment its transgender residents.
“I had never even changed my sex marker. All I did was change my name in December, so that’s the only way they could’ve flagged me,” Ellis said.
The fact that Ellis was flagged for her name change alone suggests the state of Kansas is intensely monitoring transgender citizens. In a state where changing one’s legal sex marker has now been rendered impossible, Ellis’s story shows that even just changing one’s name can be enough for a transgender person in Kansas to be identified, targeted, and forced to surrender their legal documents.
On February 27, 2026, the ACLU of Kansas announced it would be filing a lawsuit challenging S.B. 244. However, for the time being, S.B. 244 remains in effect. With the 2026 Kansas gubernatorial election looming large in November, it is extremely concerning to see the way the state is already using its power to not only disenfranchise its citizens, but effectively immobilize them in a state where driving is so essential to daily life.
Nate Zuke (he/him) is originally from Omaha, Nebraska. He has lived in Wichita, Kansas since 2016. His Bluesky handle is @natezuke.bsky.social
Scottie's Playtime 