CLASSIC: That Time Kansas Imprisoned Women For Having STDs

Ridiculous History

iHeartPodcasts

History, Society & Culture

4.3 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 22 March 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

At the close of World War I, American soldiers returned home from abroad with scars, wounds, stories and, in some cases, infections of which their romantic partners were unaware. When cities in Kansas noted the spike in sexually-transmitted diseases, they embarked upon a misguided quest to quell the infections by imprisoning the women these soldiers had infected (the soldiers didn't get arrested). So why did Kansas decide to imprison women for having STDs, how long did the program last, and why have so few people heard about it in the modern day?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	fellow ridiculous historians, thank you for joining us in this week's classic episode.
0:05.3	We're going to be honest.
0:06.8	We take a lot of license with the word ridiculous.
0:10.4	Sometimes evil things are ridiculous as well.
0:13.7	And this episode is about a very ridiculously evil policy in our good state of Kansas. That's true. Why might you ask, did Kansas
0:26.3	decide to imprison women for having sexually transmitted diseases? How long did this last?
0:32.7	And why have so few people heard about this in the modern day? Let's roll it.
0:38.8	Hey kids, it's me Kevin Smith.
0:40.7	And it's me, Harley Quinn Smith.
0:42.2	That's my daughter, man, who my wife has always said is just a beardless, dittless version
0:46.7	of me.
0:46.9	And that's the name of our podcast, beardless, dheless, me.
0:49.2	I'm the old one.
0:50.1	I'm the young one.
0:50.9	And every week, we try to make each other laugh really hard. Sounds innocent, doesn't it?
0:55.3	A lot of cussing, a lot of bad language.
0:57.2	It's for adults only.
0:58.3	Or listen to it with your kid.
0:59.7	It could be a family show.
1:00.7	We're not quite sure.
1:01.3	We're still figuring it out.
1:02.3	It's a work in progress.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from iHeartPodcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of iHeartPodcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.