LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – A bill that would ban gender-affirming treatment for minors in Nebraska is one of the last steps to pass after the legislature advanced on Friday, but not before promises were made behind closed doors to hammer out a compromise between supporters. and opponents of the bill before it passed.
Opponents of the bill fell one vote short of the 17 they needed to successfully filibuster the bill and kill it for years. It went ahead 33-16. But the vote came only after Speaker of the Legislature Sen. John Arch took the extraordinary step of delaying business on the floor for nearly an hour to finalize the agreement behind closed doors with conservative lawmakers who dominate the unique one-house, officially nonpartisan Legislature. .
Both Arch and the bill’s author, Sen. Kathleen Kauth, a freshman, said the details of the compromise have not been worked out. But Kauth said he expects to sit down with some of his supporters, opponents and medical experts in the coming days.
He didn’t have much time. There are less than 30 days left in the 90-day session. A final round of debate on the bill has not yet been scheduled.
The vote was telegraphed by opponents who used time in the last-minute debate to apologize to the LGBTQ+ community and condemn lawmakers who supported the bill.
Omaha Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh, who has been one of the most vocal in opposing the bill, sobbed into the mic.
“I’m sorry,” she cried, telling the parents of a transgender child. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do anymore in my power. You are loved. Your child is loved. You are important.”
The bill proved to be the most contentious of the session, with Cavanaugh leading the effort to get every bill before the Nebraska Legislature for weeks on end. The effort involved a lot of body work. While lawmakers have been able to pass several bills, not a single bill was passed as of Thursday.
The trans health bill advanced from its first eight-hour debate last month after supporters and opponents angrily accused each other of being bigoted and lacking collegiality.
Even before Thursday’s debate, opponents signaled that the deliberations would heat up. Omaha Sen. Megan Hunt lashed out at supporters of the trans health ban Wednesday night. For Hunt, the debate was deeply personal; he showed on the floor of the Legislature during the first round of the bill that his teenage son is transgender. He has since refused to speak to lawmakers who voted to move forward with the proposal.
“Unless the bill is killed, every bill will be filibustered, and we will talk about LB574 every day on every bill,” Hunt said.
Opponents have noted that Nebraska’s bill is similar to an Arkansas law that was temporarily blocked by a federal court because the judge deemed it would strike down the state’s ban as unconstitutional.
Cavanaugh argued that the ban was unconstitutional, noting that it targeted a protected class of people. The bill does not prevent teenage girls who identify as girls from undergoing breast reduction surgery, he said. It also does not protect teenage boys who identify as boys from surgery to remove excess breast tissue.
“You don’t want to ban top surgery on minors. You want to ban top surgery on transgender minors,” Cavanaugh said. “It’s targeting a group of people because of the way they identify. And that’s discrimination.”
Rhetoric over the bill heated up again on Thursday, with some conservative lawmakers suggesting that gender-affirming treatment has led to an increase in suicidal and suicidal thoughts among transgender teenagers.
Sen. John Lowe of Kearney echoed a common refrain among conservative activists and politicians, saying children are “waited for” in schools to develop gender dysphoria. Sen. Brian Hardin of Gering said that lawmakers asking them to follow the accepted science on transgender health care “are the same people who said ‘following the science’ on COVID-19 became unfashionable about a year ago.” Kauth called transgenderism in youth a “social contagion.”
Hunt backs that claim.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “By supporting this bill, you are telling these children that you reject it. And this is what causes suicidal ideation in children.
“You’re throwing gasoline on the fire.”
Kauth has maintained that the bill is intended to protect children from gender-affirming treatment, which they may regret as adults and call it an experimental experiment. He relied on testimony from activists and some medical reports to say it caused long-lasting damage.
The American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association all support gender-affirming treatment for youth. Kauth insinuated Thursday that greed could be driving the support, saying “medicine is also a business.”
“There is not enough research to justify this risk,” Kauth said. “I’m afraid that 10 years down the road, people are going to look back and say, ‘Where did the adults say slow down?'”
The bill was the genesis of a nearly three-week, uninterrupted filibuster brought by Cavanaugh, who followed through on a vow in late February to finish every bill before the Legislature — even the ones he supported — saying he would “burn the session to the ground. pass this bill.” As the bill advanced last month, several other lawmakers joined the filibuster.
The Nebraska bill, along with others that would prohibit trans people from using bathrooms and locker rooms or playing on sports teams that do not conform to the gender listed on their birth certificates, is among approximately 150 bills targeting transgender people that have been introduced in the. state legislature this year.
At least 13 states have now passed laws restricting or banning gender-affirming treatment for minors: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Utah, South Dakota and West Virginia. The bill is awaiting action from the governors of Kansas, Montana and North Dakota. In addition to the Arkansas ban, a federal judge has blocked enforcement of a similar law in Alabama, and nearly two dozen states are considering bills this year to limit or ban the treatment.
Despite the promise of compromise, two of Bill’s most vocal critics – Cavanaugh and Hunt – angrily announced after Friday’s vote that they were not interested in compromise.
“You care more about passing hate laws than anything else,” Cavanaugh said into the mic. “It is not true. you care more about hurting me than about anything else.”