Nebraska Senate fails to advance trans sports, bathroom bans

A proposal to restrict transgender bathroom use in public schools and participation in sports narrowly failed to overcome a filibuster in the Nebraska state Senate on Friday.

The legislation would have required that transgender students in public schools use bathrooms and participate on sports team in alignment with their sex instead of gender identity, The Hill reported.

The vote saw Republicans fall two votes shy of a two-thirds majority to clear the filibuster, with 31 Republican lawmakers supporting it and two abstaining. Nebraska Sen. Kathleen Kauth, who spearhead the bill, told The Hill that she would bring it up again for a vote in the next legislative session.

"I am disappointed that two of our Senators decided to not vote on the bill. I would have liked the opportunity to make adjustments," she said.

Twenty-five states have enacted bans on transgender participation in sports, either by legislation or through state regulations, according to the pro-LGBT Movement Advancement Project. Nebraska is one of the relatively few Republican-leaning states that have yet to do so, with Georgia being the other notable outlier.

Republicans secured a two-thirds, filibuster-proof majority in the state's unicameral legislature this week when Sen. Mike McDonnell defected from the Democrats to join the GOP.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.