Nebraska lawmakers to debate a bill on transgender students’ access to bathrooms and sports teams

Last year objections to a Nebraska bill that sought to ban gender-affirming care for anyone under age 19 ground the work of the Legislature to a near standstill. This year supporters of a companion bill restricting transgender students’ access to bathrooms and sports teams waited until the end of the session to advance it for debate, to avoid a repeat.

But it still has the potential to upend dozens of bills that have yet to pass, with only five days left in the legislative session.

“I wanted this session to go better than last year,” said Omaha Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh, a Democrat in the state’s officially nonpartisan Legislature. “I refuse to let this happen without a cost. And that cost is time. Period.”

It was Cavanaugh who led an epic filibuster of nearly every bill before the body — even ones she supported — in an effort to tank the 2023 measure, which was amended to ban gender-affirming surgery for minors and place heavy restrictions on gender-affirming medications and hormones for minors. It eventually passed after a 12-week abortion ban was attached to it, and was signed by the governor. A lawsuit challenging the hybrid law is currently winding through the courts.

Its companion, Legislative Bill 575, introduced as the Sports and Spaces Act by Republican Sen. Kathleen Kauth, was stalled for more than a year before it was voted out of committee Thursday. It would restrict students to bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams that correspond with the gender they were assigned at birth.

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