Nebraska politicians on Tuesday began debating a bill banning surgeries for transgender children and young adults – after an opponent of the bill blocked a vote with a filibuster for three weeks.
Machaela Cavanaugh, a Democrat who represents an Omaha district in the State Senate, started her obstruction after Kathleen Kauth, a Republican who also represents Omaha, introduced the bill.
The law, LB574, was introduced on January 17 and “would ban gender-affirming treatments such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery for under-19s.”
Cavanaugh and her supporters said the law was harmful to transgender teens, called it “genocide” and vowed to slow legislation to a standstill in protest.
“If this legislature collectively decides that legislation against hate for children is our priority, then I’m going to make it painful — painful for everyone,” said Cavanaugh, a married mother of three.
“Because if you want to cause pain to our children, I will cause pain to this body. I’m going to burn down the session over this bill.’
Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh speaks before the Nebraska Legislature March 13, amid her three-week filibuster to protest a law banning gender-affirmative treatment of transgender children
When Nebraska Republicans proposed an anti-trans bill, State Senator Machaela Cavanaugh vowed to thwart every other bill on the agenda until the anti-trans bill is withdrawn.
Senator Cavanaugh is now three weeks in her filibuster ❤️pic.twitter.com/BBw02HQz9q
— Gen-Z for Change (@genzforchange) March 16, 2023
Kathleen Kauth, a Republican who also represents Omaha, introduced bill LB574 in January
Cavanaugh managed to slow down the legislation-passing business by introducing amendment after amendment for every bill that makes it into the Senate and consuming all eight debate hours allowed by the rules.
Legislative Branch Secretary Brandon Metzler said such a delay had only occurred a few times in the past 10 years.
“But what’s really unusual is the lack of front-loaded bills,” Metzler said. “Usually we’re a lot further down the line than we see now.”
Only 26 bills have emerged from the first of three rounds of debates required to pass a law in Nebraska. By mid-March, there are usually two to three times as many, Metzler said.
“I have nothing, nothing but time,” she once explained. “And I will use all of it.
“If people think they’re going to wear me down, if yesterday didn’t show you that you can’t wear me down – you can’t wear me down.
“I literally got off the floor yesterday, went to my office and lay on the floor.
“I lay down on the floor, a hard floor, and took a 20-minute nap before going to the committee hearings. You can not stop me. I won’t be stopped.’
She continued, “So. If LB574 gets an early debate and moves forward, it will be very painful for this body.’
Only three bills have come out in the past three weeks since Cavanaugh began her law blockade.
“I want us to debate these bills and I want us to vote on these bills,” she said on March 15.
“And I want a record of the history of this genocide for those who confessed to it. For those who have had the opportunity to change the course of history – the direction in which we are moving as a state and country.
“I want a record. I want the bloody hands recorded. This is genocide. This is an attack on a population of people because they are different from you.’
Finally, on Tuesday, the debate about LB574 began.
The debate soon became contentious, with supporters and opponents venting their frustrations and chiding each other for a lack of collegiality.
Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh likened proposals to limit surgeries, medicine, sports and locker room use involving transgender youth to the stages of genocide, beginning with classification and progressing through discrimination to extermination. pic.twitter.com/kg9wXl9Ifa
– Nebraska Public Media News (@NebPubMediaNews) March 15, 2023
Senator John Arch is seen speaking in the Nebraska Senate in January. The Senate is currently debating a transgender child health care bill
John Lowe, a senator for Kearney, cited an activist group’s claim that youth gender dysphoria was “only temporary.”
Senator Brad von Gillern of Omaha compared gender-affirming treatment to the shock treatments, lobotomies and forced sterilizations of years past.
Carol Blood, a senator for Bellevue, countered that if the legislature really cared about medical procedures that affect children, “then why don’t we talk about circumcision?”
The Senate debate is expected to last through Thursday.
Cavanaugh eventually decided to abandon the filibuster, saying she wanted a vote to record which legislature would “legislate hate against children.”
Lawmakers convened Tuesday to begin this debate with the understanding that the bill did not have enough votes to break a filibuster.
But Kauth introduced an amendment to remove the restriction on hormone treatments and instead ban only underage sex reassignment surgeries.
This change, she said, has enough votes to move forward.
Cavanaugh has said if the bill advances on a vote expected Thursday, she will continue filibustering each bill until the end of the 90-day session in early June.
The hard feelings of lawmakers on both sides of the bill surfaced almost immediately Tuesday, when Kauth called Cavanaugh’s filibuster “selfish and childish.”
Kauth said the purpose of her bill is to protect teens from gender-affirming treatments that they may later regret as adults, citing research that says teens’ brains aren’t fully developed.
Omaha Senator Megan Hunt called this argument hypocritical, noting that Kauth supports an abortion ban bill introduced at that session that would also affect youth.
“In a few weeks, she’s going to turn around and vote for a bill that would force 12-year-olds to have a baby,” Hunt said. “She thinks they’re mature enough for that.”
Cavanaugh has spent weeks pushing the bill through and will resume her actions if the bill passes
Cavanaugh called the trans treatment law “an attack on people who love members of this body” and appealed to the Republican members of the body to return to their basic principles in order to remove government from people’s lives.
“So many of you have spoken to me about state abuse over and over again,” she said. “This law is contrary to the principles that many of you have expressed to me and are the basis of why you are here.”
The Nebraska statute, along with another that would ban trans people from using bathrooms and locker rooms or playing on sports teams that do not match the gender listed on their birth certificates, is among approximately 150 statutes that target transgender people aim and were introduced state parliaments this year.
Bans on sex-affirming childcare have already been enacted this year in some Republican-led states, including South Dakota, Utah and Mississippi.
Arkansas and Alabama have bans that have been temporarily blocked by federal judges.
Other state legislatures have finally approved measures similar to Nebraska’s bill, with Georgia submitting a bill to the governor on Tuesday that would ban most gender-affirming surgeries and hormone replacement therapy for transgender minors.