Our FOIA findings on Kansas’ ‘Bathroom Ban,’ and its bizarre overreach targeting both trans ‘violators’ and Kansas citizens in general.
Kansas now has policies instructing state employees to report their neighbors, colleagues, and the public directly to the Secretary of Administration for using the bathroom.
These policies are far more aggressive than what is required by the discriminatory laws on the books.
They require all suspected violations of the state's ban on trans people in public bathrooms to be directly reviewed by Kansas Secretary of Administration (and Democrat appointee) Adam Proffitt.
This isn't limited to bathrooms, however, as the policy and the statute both define private spaces as "spaces where someone might reasonably expect to partially undress".
These violations can range from anything from very real invasions of privacy to, of course and more intentionally, transgender people changing clothes or using restrooms that correspond to their correct gender.
This revelation comes from the results of a Freedom of Information request—more specifically, a Kansas Open Records Act (KORA) request—performed by The Needle. The documents we obtained also reveal the exact processes by which investigations and complaints about alleged violations of SB 244 are handled. For context, Adam Proffitt, the Kansas Secretary of Administration, was appointed by Kansas’ current Democratic governor, Laura Kelly, yet has a track record of aggressively enforcing GOP-led legislative regression.
Per the documents, investigation of an SB 244 complaint involves providing the state with a detailed, five-step information sheet giving personal information about the complainant and “violator”:
All complaints must, at a minimum, include:
(A) The name and contact information of the person filing the complaint.
(B) The date and location of the multiple-occupancy private space where the alleged violation occurred. The location must include the building and space (i.e. 2nd floor women’s restroom) where the alleged violation occurred.
(C) The name of the person alleged to have committed the violation. If the name is not known, a detailed description of the person must be provided.
(D) A description of what was witnessed.
(E) The name and contact information for any other witness(es) to the alleged violation
The document also clarifies that Kansas doesn’t plan to treat these complaints as sensitive data, and in fact requires the disclosure of the personal information of the complainant as well as the “violator”:
Complaints filed pursuant 2026 SB 244(g)(1) are not confidential. Third party complaints will not be accepted. The complaint must come from the person who witnessed an alleged violation. Anonymous complaints will also not be accepted.
The policy goes on to state that, “Investigations of complaints filed pursuant to the language above will be conducted by the D of A [Department of Administration] or state agency Human Resources, if designated.”
In this case, the “designated officer” of such investigations is, again, Adam Proffitt, the state’s Secretary of Administration.
On February 19, 2026, the Department of Administration (D of A) issued a “Policy on Designation of ‘Multiple-Occupancy Private Spaces’” designating the Secretary of the D of A as the chief administrative officer of “public buildings” subject to the policy.
Adam Proffitt is designated by policy in the department he controls as personally in charge of investigating trans people (and those suspected of being trans people, as well as other alleged violators of SB 244) for violating the public exclusion provisions of the law in Kansas— often referred to as a mere bathroom ban to minimize the law’s impact.
But to be clear, SB 244 affects more than just bathrooms; anything designated as a “private space” is under the purview of SB 244.
"Multiple-occupancy private space" means a facility designed or designated for simultaneous use by more than one individual and in which an individual may be in a state of undress in the presence of another individual, regardless of whether the facility provides curtains or partial walls for privacy. "Multiple-occupancy private space" includes, but is not limited to, a restroom, locker room, changing room or shower room.
Proffitt was also present (but did not speak directly) in his official capacity as Secretary of Administration in March at the court hearing in which Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach successfully convinced the judge not to issue a temporary restraining order against SB 244’s provisions.
There’s a wrinkle in this, as some of buildings under the Department’s purview just on the capitol campus area don’t even have single-occupancy restrooms. That is, there are physical parts of the seat of the Kansas government (specifically, the Curtis Building, Memorial Hall, and the Printing/Mail & Surplus Property building) in which no trans person can safely, legally, use the correct bathroom at all—regardless of whether they are a part of the public or a government employee.
This glaring issue was treated by the text of the email as routine information, standard operating procedure for the United States in 2026.
Another of our findings springs from a conspicuous absence of records produced to satisfy The Needle’s request—there were no responsive records produced by the state of Kansas which had any draft language for the policies produced, only the final versions emailed by Proffitt to his department.
The records jump straight from Kobach’s veto override on Feb. 18 to a complete, signed policy the very next day—no draft or amendment chains were present in what was produced under the KORA request.
This suggests that the department was not taking extensive time to evaluate its responsibilities to the public and towards compliance with the law, but rather spinning out new policy as quickly as it could—without even drafting earlier versions on the record.
A further notable omission from our KORA request are records of communication between Kobach’s and Proffitt’s offices.
The Needle’s records request was written with language to catch those too, requesting “[i]nternal emails or communications sent to or from Adam Proffitt which have [Kris Kobach] as a listed recipient or sender… that are also dated between February 1st 2026 and June 9th 2026,” but Kansas failed to provide any such records in response.
This could imply that such communications were only made verbally, i.e. that Kobach and Proffitt spend all their time communicating via chats over lunch or golf or the like, and therefore that there are simply no records to produce; or, more suggestively, that there was minimal coordination between the two Kansas offices at all.
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This hole in the record makes it hard to track who first worked on the policies and when these policies were first drafted. Regardless of this chicken-and-egg conundrum, however, the standing policy documents are helpful for understanding the state of anti-gender politics and anti-trans policy in Kansas at this time. If the chaos of missing documents wasn’t enough, what we do have paints a somewhat fractured picture of internal Kansas politics.
Those representing Proffitt’s Department of Administration had previously implied in court that there was difficulty and/or friction regarding the implementation of policy surrounding SB 244:
We also haven't created any new signage or taken any efforts to retrofit any bathrooms to comply with the law. At this point, we're operating on the policy that we issued. Because of that, and the unclear nature of where we're going at this point, we are not opposed to a TRO for the bathroom portion. In fact, we'd probably in some ways lean towards supporting it to allow us the opportunity to have additional time to evaluate.
-Jordan Brewer, counsel for the Kansas Department of Administration, on behalf of Secretary Adam Proffitt
But despite the counsel’s implication here that the office would relish the “opportunity to have additional time to evaluate,” the records The Needle received as part of our request show the secretary seems to think otherwise. One email sent to all agencies on February 19 instructs them to “inform your employees of the Department of Administration policy, and make the listing of single occupancy restrooms available to your employees.”
And an email dated February 19 sent by Proffitt to himself, with his department’s legal team cc’ed, reads:
Good afternoon,
On February 18, 2026, the Legislature overrode the Governor’s veto of Senate Bill 244. Section 1 of Senate Bill 244 creates a new law that applies to multiple-occupancy private spaces, including restrooms, in certain public/government buildings. The law will become effective upon publication in the Kansas Register. The next Kansas Register publication is expected to take place on Thursday, February 26, 2026. A follow-up email will be sent on the effective date to notify state agencies.
The attached policy is provided by the Secretary of Administration for use by all state agencies. Please inform your employees of the Department of Administration policy.
Again, there is no statutory requirement that Proffitt personally investigate all claims.
He could delegate that duty; it would certainly be easier for him to avoid reviewing potentially thousands of complaints per day.
The text of SB 244 requires that the state attorney general, in this case Kobach, investigate such claims of violations, and given that the documents are for DoA employees and heads, it is pretty clear that the rules are for complaints that are raised where the DoA can assert its own jurisdiction.
However, the policy his department drafted and he sent out reserves both investigation power and power of final review and determination for the Secretary of Administration, first. At this time, that Secretary, need we remind you once again, is one Adam Proffitt, of Shawnee, Kansas.
Proffitt will be given not only the data of all accused of violating SB 244 to review, but also the data of all Kansas residents accusing their neighbor of said crimes, and all other alleged witnesses present. And his office has explicitly chosen not to make this information confidential, but rather to allow it into public record.
The Needle has contacted Secretary Proffitt for comment, and as of the publication of this article received no response. Mr. Proffitt, if you are so interested in personally reviewing images of trans people in bathrooms, we can suggest several existing websites instead of you taking these extreme measures.
The documents obtained by The Needle are only a small part of the records we requested. While some of our requests were denied outright, others can only be accessed with a payment of nearly $1,000, far outside of our current budget. To ensure that we can do more work like this, please consider subscribing to The Needle, to help disseminate this information amongst trans people worldwide.
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All documents obtained as part of the KORA request that are also referenced in this story have been embedded below.
