Nebraska became the latest state to prohibit transgender athletes from participating on women’s and girls’ teams when Governor Jim Pillen signed a law on Wednesday prohibiting transgender children from participating in girls’ sports.
Alongside hundreds of senators, female athletes, and other supporters, including former collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines, who has established herself as a strong voice in favor of prohibiting transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports, Pillen signed the legislation.
By a single party-line vote, the Nebraska Legislature’s measure last week ended a filibuster. The original version, which also aimed to prevent transgender kids from using locker rooms and restrooms that corresponded with their gender identity, was scaled back.
When one Republican, Omaha Senator Merv Riepe, stated he would vote against the toilet and locker room ban, the sponsors agreed to revoke it.
Sen. Kathleen Kauth, who was then a freshman in 2023, introduced the bill, but it was unsuccessful because senators fiercely debated her second bill, which would have prohibited gender-affirming care for transgender adolescents under the age of 19. Later, a revised version was ratified and put into effect that year, prohibiting gender-affirming surgery for minors but not all gender-affirming care.
Reiterating her opposition to the idea that individuals can choose their own gender, Kauth pledged on Wednesday to reinstate her restriction on bathrooms and locker rooms for the upcoming year.
She stated, “Men are men and women are women,” and called on Riepe’s district’s constituents to put pressure on him to back it.
Republicans who support the sports ban claim that it safeguards girls’ and women’s rights to equal competition in sports. Critics claim the move is a solution in search of a problem because so few transgender students want to play sports.
According to the Nebraska School Activities Association, less than 10 transgender students have played middle school and high school sports in the state in the last ten years.
Similar prohibitions have been enacted in at least 24 additional states. In addition, President Donald Trump has fought in court against Maine for permitting transgender athletes to participate in women’s and girls’ sports, and he signed an executive order this year that aims to restrict which sports tournaments transgender athletes can participate in.
Read Also: California Track Championships Start with New Rules Addressing Trans Athlete Events
The action was condemned by the Nebraska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
According to Mindy Rush Chipman, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska, the prohibition “slams the door shut” for certain transgender students to fully engage in their school communities.
Rush Chipman declared, “This ban will only create problems, not solve any,” and that “Nebraska LGBTQ+ people must no longer be singled out forever.”
