A Nebraska bill to ban transgender students from the bathrooms and sports of their choice fails

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A bill that that would bar transgender students from school bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams that correspond with their gender identity failed Friday to get enough votes to advance in heavily conservative Nebraska.

Legislative Bill 575, dubbed the Sports and Spaces Act by its author Sen. Kathleen Kauth, would have restricted students to teams and facilities for the gender they were assigned at birth. An amended version would have gone a step further by barring students taking male hormones from girls’ teams, even if they were assigned female at birth, effectively excluding transgender males from all sports competition.

The bill needed 33 votes to end a filibuster and failed by a margin of 31 to 15, eliciting a cheer from protesters outside the chamber. Sens. Tom Brandt and Merv Riepe, who initially cosponsored the bill and had been expected to support it, abstained.

With only four days left in the legislative session, the bill is dead for the year.

Its sudden re-emergence this session temporarily threw the Legislature into turmoil. It had been stalled for more than a year before it was suddenly voted out of committee Thursday and scheduled for debate Friday.

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