Kansas enacted SB228 mandating that county jails house detainees by biological sex over the governor's veto

On April 26, 2023, the Kansas Legislature overrode Governor Laura Kelly's veto to enact Senate Bill 228, enacted as 2023 Session Laws Chapter 83. Framed principally as a county-jail modernization measure — reimbursing counties for costs of holding people awaiting competency evaluation and revising jail procedures — the bill also amended K.S.A. 19-1903 to define "sex" as "an individual's biological sex, either male or female, at birth" and to require sheriffs to keep separate jail spaces for each sex, male and female. The effect is to bar transgender and intersex women from female-designated housing in county jails.

The House overrode the veto 87-37 and the Senate 31-9, each clearing the two-thirds threshold. Governor Kelly had vetoed the bill on April 20, 2023, as part of a group of measures she said targeted transgender Kansans; supporters characterized the language as inserting portions of the "women's bill of rights" into jail procedures. Critics noted that the biological-sex definition was attached to an otherwise routine county-jail funding bill and created new burdens for transgender and intersex people in custody. SB228 is distinct from Kansas SB180 and HB2238, other 2023 measures enacted in the same veto session.