I saw this yesterday and intended to post it for Sunday morning. It’s suppertime on Sunday, so it goes live Monday morning. It’ll keep until then. Click on through; it’s not too long. There are good graphics there, and that helped me.
404 Media is publishing a version of the user guide for ELITE, which lets ICE bring up dossiers on individual people and provides a “confidence score” of their address.
The tool lets ICE populate a map with potential deportation targets, bring up dossiers on each person, and view an address “confidence score” based on data sourced from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and other government agencies. This is according to a user guide for ELITE 404 Media obtained.
404 Media is now publishing a version of that user guide so people can read it for themselves. (snip-MORE)
So far, it’s not illegal for us to acknowledge that February is Black History Month, so here we are, doing just that. Ha! There is even some Black History for this very date in Peace and Justice History:
February 1, 1960 Greensboro first day: Ezell A. Blair, Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil, and David L. Richmond leave the Woolworth store after the first sit-in on February 1, 1960. Four black college students sat down at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and were refused service because of their race. To protest the segregation of the eating facilities, they remained and sat-in at the lunch counter until the store closed. Four students returned the next day, and the same thing happened. Similar protests subsequently took place all over the South and in some northern communities. By September 1961, more than 70,000 students, both white and black, had participated, with many arrested, during sit-ins. On the second day of the Greensboro sit-in, Joseph A. McNeil and Franklin E. McCain are joined by William Smith and Clarence Henderson at the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.
February 1, 1961 On the first anniversary of the Greensboro sit-in, there were demonstrations all across the south, including a Nashville movie theater desegregation campaign (which sparked similar tactics in 10 other cities). Nine students were arrested at a lunch counter in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and chose to take 30 days hard labor on a road gang. The next week, four other students repeated the sit-in, also chose jail.
In light of current events, I thought it’d be good to review how Black History Month came to be. Below is a bit on its beginnings.
Black History Month was first observed as Negro History Week in February 1926, but the inspiration for the commemoration began over a decade earlier through a steady stream of electrifying events, discoveries, and other celebrations of Black excellence. In 1915, American historian Dr. Carter G. Woodson attended the national celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of emancipation in Washington D.C. This event was widely attended and proved to be profoundly inspiring for Dr. Woodson who, later that year, joined forces with A. L. Jackson, William B. Hartgrove, George Cleveland Hall, and James E. Stamps to establish the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, known today as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH 2024). ASALH had the ambitious goal of educating the public about the achievements, inventions, and progress made by Black Americans, and though the Association’s intellectual efforts were remarkable – they began to publish The Journal of Negro History in 1916 and founded Negro History and Literature Week in 1924 – Dr. Woodson had a wider vision of his mission. Wishing to continue to discover and celebrate the history of the Black past, Dr. Woodson announced the celebration of Negro History Week through a press release.
Accounts of the contributions of Black Americans were notably absent from history books, credited to white men, or omitted altogether. Progressive communities and schools were ripe for the rich history that Negro History Week offered. Matching the popularity of the week, Woodson and the Association established an annual theme for the celebration to guide and inspire educators. Weary of those simply wishing to capitalize on a popular event, “Woodson warned teachers not to invite speakers who had less knowledge than the students themselves” (ASALH 2024). Additionally, ASALH expanded their offerings to provide study materials: pictures, lessons for teachers, plays for historical performances, and posters of important dates and people. This cemented the celebration of Black history in schools and communities, and Negro History Week grew in popularity throughout the following decades, with mayors across the United States endorsing it as a holiday.
Negro History Week grew into Black History Month in 1970 under the leadership of Black educators and students at Kent State University and would become a federally recognized event six years later. President Gerald Ford recognized Black History Month in 1976 during the celebration of the United States Bicentennial. He urged Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history” (Franklin 2022). Today, nearly one hundred years after that initial celebration, it is prudent to reflect on the designed purpose of Black History Month and discover that after all this time, these lessons are still relevant, inspiring, and necessary. As Dr. Woodson said, “Real education means to inspire people to live more abundantly, to learn to begin with life as they find it and make it better” (Woodson 1933).
Pictured: Dr. Carter G. Woodson, The “father of Black history”
Photo Credit: Addison Norton Scurlock, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
ASALH. 2024. Carter G. Woodson Timeline: ASALH – the Founders of Black History Month. December 19. Accessed January 16, 2025. asalh.org/carter-g-woodson-timeline/.
Woodson, Carter G. 1933. The Mis-Education of the Negro. Trenton: Africa World Press.
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All right! So, we see that Black History Week then Month has been around for at least 20 years longer than our current POTUS, who seems to be ignoring the month’s existence. But, there’s no reason any of the rest of we the people have to! Including all history makes the US so much richer in knowledge. Most local historical and cultural organizations are going to have commemorations this month. What fun it will be, and how community-unifying for each of us to find an activity near us, and join in!
I often say that a lot of anti-trans anti-gay anti-LGBTQ+ people have their feelings because they don’t feel different from the cis straight majority so can’t understand or accept that such things because they simply don’t feel that way. If they don’t feel it it can’t be real which is the same with how many white people feel about racism. Remember the old question of how do you know you’re gay or trans or lesbian or nonbinary or what ever simply because the people who grew up straight and cis felt normal in society? But if you ask them when they knew or how they knew they were straight and / or cis they are confused. If a boy at 10 comes out as gay the parents freak out, but if that same kid starts showing interest in girls the parents are ecstatic about their boy growing up. Why the difference? Because one fulfills their expectations and the other … well it just is not like them. It simply comes down to tradition and what feels normal for them. Every person who asked me if I tried to change my sexual orientation and there have been so many, to them I ask have you? They act offended. Why would I do that and I reply, then why should I. Then if they persist for some reason that I should do conversion therapy I ask could they convert from their straight / cis desires to being LGBTQ+? Again they are stunned why they would do that and instantly claim not I couldn’t do that. Then again why ask me to do it? Hugs
Providing objective, nonpartisan, rigorous, original journalism that investigates America’s anti-LGBTQ landscape and elevates everyday American heroes. Expect two rigorously reported stories every weekend.
On Oct. 7, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Chiles v. Salazar, a case that challenges Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy.
Shortly after, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) sent an email to their supporters quoting Paul in Ephesians 6:12: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
The email goes on to say, “You might think that a law like this might be just a ‘Colorado problem.’ Sadly, laws like this exist in 22 other states,” referencing other parts of the U.S. that have instituted conversion therapy bans.
This sort of language about conversion therapy is nothing new for the Christian legal group representing Kaley Chiles. Unlike most legal organizations, ADF is sharply anti-LGBTQ. Since their inception over 30 years ago, the group has fought to maintain anti-sodomy laws, uphold the right to discriminate against gay couples and overturn Roe v. Wade.
In recent years, a major element of their fight has been to legalize the discredited practice of conversion therapy.
The Supreme Court appears poised to rule in favor of ADF, which could effectively invalidate conversion therapy bans for minors by licensed professionals across the U.S. This victory would add to the organization’s already-high win streak, which they say is around 80%.
“I don’t think anyone is undermining LGBTQ rights as relentlessly as ADF,” Peter Montgomery, research director at the advocacy group People for the American Way, told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “They’re shaping the culture for generations to come.”
Although nearly every major medical association has denounced conversion therapy, ADF is arguing that disallowing the practice is a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
“This case is part of its crusade to turn religious freedom into a license to harm others,” says Amy Tai, the co-author of an amicus brief in Chiles v. Salazar that is urging the Supreme Court to uphold the Colorado law. “It is part of a larger effort and movement to harm LGBTQ people and strip them of their constitutional rights.”
ADF, originally the Alliance Defense Fund, was founded by evangelical anti-gay activists in 1994. Alan Sears, their former CEO and president, co-authored “The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today.” The book calls homosexuality a “disordered sexual behavior” and equates it with pedophilia and states that gay people on college campuses are involved in “the promotion of sexual relations between adults and children.”
D. James Kennedy, another founder, has preached about “reparative” therapy for gay folks. In a 1993 fundraising letter for his Christian media organization Coral Ridge Ministries, he asked “Would you want your son, daughter, or grandchild sharing a shower, foxhole, or blood with a homosexual?”
A third founder was the late James Dobson, who advised several presidents and argued that conversion therapy could “cure” people.
Since ADF launched, many powerful political figures with anti-LGBTQ beliefs have worked for them. While working as an ADF spokesperson between 2002 and 2010, House Speaker Mike Johnson described gay folks as “destructive” and argued that support for homosexuality could lead to support for pedophilia.
Kristen Waggoner speaking at a press conference in 2018 (Groversawit)
And their current president, Kristen Waggoner, has delegitimized the harm conversion therapy causes by defining the practice as merely having conversations.
Today, their influence in the U.S. government is stronger than ever, with ties to all three branches. In addition to Speaker Johnson, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett has been a paid speaker for ADF at least five times since 2011. And in May, President Donald Trump appointed Waggoner to the newly-formed Religious Liberty Commission.
All of these resources and connections are employed to advance an anti-LGBTQ agenda. “They want to see what they see as the God-defined order for gender and marriage be imposed into law,” Montgomery says. “They are trying to create a legal regime in which people can claim religious beliefs to opt out of laws that apply to everyone else.”
History of Fighting to Criminalize Homosexuality and Legalize Conversion Therapy
Over time, ADF has incorporated these viewpoints into their litigation to try and dismantle legal protections for LGBTQ people.
“Just 20 years ago, they were still arguing in court that states should be able to criminalize gay people,” says Montgomery.
In 2000, for example, ADF funded amicus briefs in Dale v. Boy Scouts of America, a case where an assistant scoutmaster sued the Boy Scouts after the organization revoked his membership for being gay. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of ADF.
In 2003, when support for gay marriage was still low in the U.S., they filed an amicus brief to uphold the criminalization of gay sex in Lawrence v. Texas, arguing that the state has a right to regulate “public health and morality.” The group lost the case and sodomy laws were banned nationwide.
As public opinion changed and gay marriage became legal across America in 2015, ADF shifted to more nuanced arguments. “Now, because they know that most Americans favor LGBTQ equality, they’ve really reframed their arguments [around] religious liberty and free speech,” says Montgomery.
The organization has since set its sights on overturning state bans on conversion therapy. In 2018, ADF Senior Counsel Matt Sharp argued against a California bill that classified conversion therapy as fraud. And in 2019, the group sued New York City for a similar law, which led the city to reverse the ban out of fear the case would reach the Supreme Court.
A few years later, in 2021, ADF fought to overturn a statewide conversion therapy ban in Washington, where they represented Christian therapist Brian Tingley. In this instance, they argued that Washington’s law censored Tingley from speaking about gender dysphoria.
A federal appeals court unanimously upheld Washington’s law, with Circuit Judge Ronald Gould shutting down ADF’s argument, writing that: “Washington, like other states, has concluded that health care providers should not be able to treat a child by such means as telling him that he is ‘the abomination we had heard about in Sunday school.’”
Learning from their mistakes, ADF tried again with Chiles v. Salazar, claiming the Colorado law discriminates against Chiles’ viewpoint. Chiles is an evangelical therapist who received her counseling training and education from a seminary.
In their arguments to the Supreme Court, ADF says the conversion therapy ban encourages therapists to help minors explore LGBTQ identities and condemns assisting patients to align with their assigned gender.
Though intended to ban conversion therapy for all LGBTQ people, ADF’s case focuses on gender identity, capitalizing on souring U.S. public opinion on trans rights.
“Chiles believes that people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design, including their biological sex,” ADF wrote in a petition to the Supreme Court.
“ADF has tried to draw a connection between laws prohibiting conversion therapy and states attempting to force mental health professionals or doctors to treat transgender youth,” Christopher Stoll, senior staff attorney at the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. But if the law passes, conversion therapy would become legal to practice on all LGBTQ people.
Another part of ADF’s success stems from manufacturing legal battles to advance cases that match their goals.
Chiles, for example, had not incurred any legal penalty from the Colorado district attorney. Instead, ADF filed a pre-enforcement lawsuit, claiming that she had censored herself and stopped accepting patients for conversion therapy following the law’s passage.
“All of these cases are, in a sense, made up cases. … They’re brought on behalf of therapists who have not actually been subject to any kind of investigation or penalty by either state or local governments,” says Stoll, who is representing Kansas City, Mo. as ADF and Missouri’s Attorney General challenge the city’s ban on conversion therapy.
This strategy is what makes ADF stand out. Montgomery says that unlike many other legal organizations, ADF also helps file lawsuits and writes the bills that directly challenge precedents and legislation they hope to change.
This was in part how they were effective in overturning Roe v. Wade. ADF drafted the Gestational Age Act, which banned abortion in Mississippi after 15 weeks of pregnancy. That law then became the central point of the Dobbs case, which overturned abortion rights nationwide.
“They’re just engineered to test these legal arguments, when really no dispute has arisen,” says Stoll.
When asked for comment, an Alliance Defending Freedom Media Relations Specialist redirected Uncloseted Media to a website criticizing the Southern Poverty Law Center, saying the group mischaracterizes ADF as a hate group.
How ADF Operates Globally
ADF’s efforts to dismantle conversion therapy and LGBTQ rights span far beyond the U.S. Alliance Defending Freedom International (ADFI) boasts about efforts in 70 countries, where they push anti-LGBTQ legislation as far as possible in each country.
In 2012, ADF’s then-legal counsel Piero Tozzi spoke at a conference in Jamaica, advocating for the prohibition of gay sex, stating that the “retention of the legislation prohibiting sodomy is a bulwark against this agenda.” And in 2013, members of ADF defended a statute in Belize that characterized LGBTQ sex as “carnal intercourse against the order of nature.”
“They’re one of the most powerful and influential Christian right religious extremist groups that we have operating in Europe,” Neil Datta, executive director of the European Parliamentary Forum on Sexual and Reproductive Rights, told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES.
Datta says with offices in six cities with international human rights centers, ADFI contacts political allies throughout the continent, feeding them legal briefs and direct arguments. Then, those partners take that information and rejig it to align with their country’s political discourse.
“They’re hiring Europeans, training them in the American model of social issues litigation from an anti-rights perspective, and then hoping that [they] will be running with this in European courts,” Datta says. “They bring know-how and capacity to the continent.”
Datta says the U.S. is where the organization conducts its litmus tests for anti-LGBTQ laws and legal arguments: “In the U.S., you have 50 little courts that you can try things out in,” he says. “[ADF] has their own range of different areas that they would like to be active in, and they hunt for opportunities where they can make some progress.”
That includes the defense of Finnish politician Päivi Räsänen, who in 2021 was tried for hate speech for condemning a Lutheran church for supporting a Pride event. With ADFI’s assistance, Räsänen was acquitted in 2023.
Making Headway to Ban Conversion Therapy Abroad
While ADFI has yet to succeed in overturning conversion therapy bans in Europe, Datta says some politicians with links to the group have promoted reintegrative therapy, another form of therapy that attempts to help folks suppress same-sex attraction. While the term attempts to distance itself from conversion therapy, it uses similar procedures to the condemned practice.
However, Datta says ADFI is taking steps to shift the discourse by lobbying against the Digital Services Act, a European Union regulation for online hate speech.
In October, ADFI penned a letter to the European Commission asking the organization to review the law. ADF has also posted various blogs on the legislation, one posing a hypothetical about gender identity, stating, “Let’s say you went on Facebook … to post something as common sense as believing that there are only two genders. … If someone were to report that as hate speech, the E.U. could pressure Meta … to remove the post lest it face those stiff financial penalties.”
ADFI has also expanded its horizons to Africa. In May, Bettina Roska, an ADFI legal officer based in Geneva, joined a consortium of anti-LGBTQ advocates in a Pan-African conference on “family values” in Nairobi, Kenya.
“They are trying to do the same thing in Africa, around the African Union, and the African human rights system,” Jamie Vernaelde, senior researcher at Ipas, a non-governmental organization that focuses on reducing the harm of U.S. foreign policy, told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES.
Back in the U.S., the Supreme Court will rule on Chiles v. Salazar before the end of its current term next year. Their decision will potentially clear the way for conversion therapy to be practiced nationwide and abroad.
Vernaelde says that if Chiles v. Salazar is successful, ADF is hoping to bring their fight against conversion therapy worldwide in the same way they are expanding their anti-abortion lawsuits. Today, the group is attempting to undo abortion protections in the U.K. with the help of allies in the country’s right-wing Reform party.
“This is a template that they can use in other places that they can spread as widely as they want through their networks,” says Vernaelde.
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I haven’t shared this guy’s work in some time, either.
I am a member of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, and I also sit on its board of directors. Today, our president, Marc Murphy, wrote a statement for the organization in defense of journalist Don Lemon, who was arrested by the Trump regime for doing his job.
My favorite part of Raiders of the Lost Ark is when they remove the lid, and Greg Bovino’s face melts off. Of course, that would be impossible. He’s not tall enough to reach the top of the ark. By the way, I love this woman.
You know Donald Trump only cares about the optics because he has been perfectly happy with Greg Bovino’s job performance. Trump doesn’t have a problem with American citizens protesting ICE being murdered in the streets. It’s just too bad the optics aren’t good about that, as even Republicans are starting to cringe. Notice that Trump didn’t have any empathy for Congresswoman Ilhan Omar being attacked? And it’s probably his fault.
Hours later, the calf, fed and fluffed, took a spot on the couch with the Sorrell family’s two children. Their mom, Macey Sorrell, snapped some photos and later posted them to social media, and the cuteness did not go unnoticed.
The calf was born outdoors in single digit temperatures on Saturday. Macey Sorrell said her husband, Tanner, went outside to check on the pregnant mother and found the calf, suffering in the cold.
“She was just frozen. Her umbilical cord looked like a popsicle,” Macey Sorrell said Thursday from her home in Mount Sterling, Kentucky. “It was just frozen.”
After losing a calf last winter to frostbite, the family moved quickly to bring the baby inside to clean her off and warm her up.
House Majority Leader Chris Croft suspended rules to force an emergency vote immediately after the Jan. 28, 2026, House debate on a bathroom bill forcing people to use facilities aligned with their biological sex at birth. The move pushed the bill through immediately instead of waiting one day as is usually required. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
TOPEKA — The GOP-led Kansas House and Senate on Wednesday approved a “bathroom bill” targeting transgender people after House Democrats delayed passage by six hours, proposing multiple amendments to set the stage for a possible legal challenge.
House Majority Leader Chris Croft, an Overland Park Republican, called for emergency action to take the vote immediately after debating the bill instead of waiting a day as rules require. House Substitute for Senate Bill 244 passed on an 87-36 vote along party lines, with one Republican opposed.
The Senate concurred with the bill Wednesday evening, voting 30 to 9, also along party lines. The bill will go to Gov. Laura Kelly, who is expected to veto the legislation. It passed both chambers with the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.
Democrats fought the bill’s passage in the House, basing their arguments on two primary concepts — that the bill was rushed through the legislative process, giving little time for public input, and that it is an inhumane attack on transgender people.
“This bill spits on basic human decency, and I’m embarrassed we had to spend the entire day trying to defeat this thing,” said Rep. Susan Ruiz, D-Shawnee.
Ruiz also said she believed the bill was targeted at a specific legislator, referring to Rep. Abi Boatman, a Wichita Democrat who is a transgender woman. Boatman was selected to fill a vacant seat in early January.
“I have sat here for five and a half hours and listened to this entire room debate my humanity and my ability to participate in the most basic functions of society,” Boatman said at the close of debate. “From the bottom of my heart, I hope none of you have to ever sit through something like that.”
The legislation would require people to use the bathroom in government buildings that matches their biological sex at birth, rather than their gender, and requires governments to enforce the rule. Both the governmental body and individuals could face steep fines for violating the law.
The bill also requires that the sex listed on a driver’s license and birth certificate match the person’s biological sex at birth.
House Minority Leader Brandon Woodard, D-Lenexa, said in an interview after the House adjourned that the amendments and testimony presented by Democrats throughout the day “gave a lot of fodder” to Kansas courts to make a decision when the case is revived.
During debate, Democrats repeatedly referenced Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach failed attempt in court to ban gender marker changes on driver’s licenses. Woodard said he didn’t think this bill would hold up in court, either.
“As long as Kris Kobach’s our attorney general, I think he’s going to continue to lose in court,” he said.
Rep. Alexis Simmons, D-Topeka, talks about her experience with sexual assault during a Jan. 28, 2026, House debate on a bill to regulate who can use a bathroom in a government building. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
Emotional testimony
It was a long debate full of emotion, sometimes anger, often frustration. Several times legislators were accused of impugning another legislator, and loud exclamations resonated from both sides of the chamber, including emphatic shouts of “oh, baloney.”
Rep. Alexis Simmons, D-Topeka, said she hadn’t planned to talk about a personal trauma but felt compelled to speak up when she heard others testify about how difficult it would be for women who have been raped to share a bathroom with a man.
She referred to testimony by Rep. Charlotte Esau, R-Olathe, who said the bill protected the “silent” women who are unwilling to speak up about being assaulted and who need women-only spaces to feel safe.
“I’m a victim of a sexual assault and never once did I think it was somebody else’s responsibility to manage my trauma,” Simmons said. “I feel enormous sympathy for victims of trauma, that goes without saying, but I do not appreciate my trauma being used to justify legislation that we know will cause harm to people.”
Simmons said she felt more threatened by men than she had ever felt by a transgender person.
“Here in this building, as an intern, as a committee assistant, as staff and as a legislator, I have been sexually harassed more than you would believe,” she said. “If we’re going to talk about women’s safety, we should address the real trauma, which is how women are treated, not putting the spotlight on one new member of our Legislature.”
Rep. John Carmichael, D-Wichita, rejected claims made by Rep. Susan Humphries, R-Wichita, and Rep. Bob Lewis, R-Garden City, who argued the bill would protect women.
The bill instead will force transgender men, who live as and look like men, to use a woman’s restroom, Carmichael said.
“He is going to sit down at the stall next to your granddaughter,” Carmichael said. “Is that what you really want? Not only that, there are other facilities which have locker rooms or the like. That hairy-faced man will be standing naked, showering next to your daughter. That’s what this bill requires.”
Other legislators spoke about concerns that the bill would embolden people to attack transgender individuals.
Rabbi Moti Rieber, with Kansas Interfaith Action, watched all six hours of debate, his face often grim.
“This bill is a combination of a culture war-obsessed supermajority and a broken legislative process, using every process trick in the book to get unnecessary and harmful legislation into law with no public input,” he said.
Rep. Dan Osman, D-Overland Park, opposes a bathroom bill during a six-hour House debate on Jan. 28, 2026. The bill forces people to use the bathroom that matches their sex at birth. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
Process problems
Throughout the day, Democrats pointed to process problems surrounding the bill. The Judiciary Committee revealed a hearing on House Bill 2426 with less than 24-hour notice. At a later hearing, the bathroom portion of the bill was added with no advance notice and no chance for public input.
Then, in a procedure referred to as “gut and go,” the committee dumped the contents of HB 2426 into Senate Bill 244, which allowed the Senate to simply concur without ever holding a hearing on the overwritten bill.
“Procedurally, it is the absolute worst bill I have ever heard in the Kansas Legislature,” said Rep. Dan Osman, D-Overland Park, who also serves on the Judiciary Committee. “It was done with one purpose and one purpose only — to ensure that the absolute least number of people were available as opponents to this bill and that they were unaware that there would even be a hearing.”
Additionally, there is no fiscal note — a formal notice provided by budget analysts and researchers about how much a bill will cost — for the bathroom provision. That means it is unclear how much local governments could have to pay to ensure they are complying with the law.
Rep. Kirk Haskins, D-Topeka, said he was upset about the rushed schedule and the lack of a fiscal note.
“It upsets me when we rush things through that deal with my constituents, and my constituents, they don’t get a say. That’s what happened here,” he said. “This is a trend. I don’t know what’s going on. Yesterday, we had committee meetings without information. We heard a bill, we didn’t have a proponent, just because we have the power to do it.”
Some legislators focused on details, such as how enforcement would be handled and what would happen if someone violated the bathroom restrictions. Humphries, the Wichita Republican who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said complaints would be made to the governing body if someone suspected a person was using a bathroom that didn’t match their sex at birth.
The bill outlines fines for individuals and also that governing bodies could be held accountable — to fines as high as $25,000 — if they don’t require people to use bathrooms as outlined.
In an interview after the House adjourned, Haskins said he would be comfortable seeing Boatman, as a transgender woman, in the men’s restroom at the Statehouse.
“I’m comfortable with anybody in the restroom,” he said. “I think the bill is based upon fearmongering on issues that are not critical to Kansas, and wherever she wants to go, Rep. Boatman, I’ve got her back.”
Scottie's Playtime 
