Latest news with #MilitaryandVeteransAffairsCommittee
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Saturday Boredom Busters: May 17th
SIOUX FALLS, SD (KELO) — The Military and Veterans Affairs Committee of the Greater Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce is hosting an Armed Forces Day program. It's taking place at 10 a.m. at the South Dakota Military Heritage Alliance. The program includes a performance by the Sioux Falls Municipal Band as well as an oath of enlistment ceremony. Admission is free. More than 60 new homes in Sioux Falls and surrounding areas are opening their doors to the public this weekend as part of the Spring Parade of Homes. There's a $5 fee to see the two feature homes, otherwise all the other homes are free to see. The hours are 1-5 p.m. The Marv Skie–Lincoln County Airport in Tea is serving a pancake breakfast from 8-10 a.m. Check out the airplane after breakfast. Your $10 donation will go toward youth aviation programs. Purchase fresh produce along with other home-grown and home-made items at the Falls Park Farmers Market. It's open every Saturday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. through October. Babies & Buds is a springtime farm adventure at Farmer Braun's LLC south of Lennox, SD. It's taking place from 2-4:30 p.m. and includes animal encounters, flower pot decorating, a scavenger hunt and barrel train rides. Activities at the Orange City Tulip Festival include an antique tractor show at 9 a.m., a petting zoo at 11 a.m., volksparades at 1 & 6 p.m. and a performance of The Wizard of Oz at 8 p.m. The Sioux Valley Model Engineers Society is hosting an open house at their club building on the north side of the W.H. Lyon Fairgrounds. You can check out South Dakota's largest permanent model railroad display from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today and Sunday. Admission is free. Buy, sell or swap coins, currency, stamps and sports cards at the Midwest Gold & Silver Coin Show. It's taking place at the Sioux Falls Convention Center from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday's hours are 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is free. Movies playing at the historic State Theater in downtown Sioux Falls include The Aristocats, rated G, plus The Empire Strikes Back and The Legend of Ochi, both rated PG. The Wells Fargo CineDome & Sweetman Planetarium at the Washington Pavilion features T-Rex, Mars: The Ultimate Voyage, 3-2-1 Liftoff and Experience the Aurora. New movie releases playing at a theater near you include Final Destination Bloodlines and Hurry Up Tomorrow, both rated R. The Verne Drive-In Theatre in Luverne, MN features Sinners, rated R, starting at 8:45 p.m. followed by A Minecraft Movie, rated PG. Admission is $8, free for ages 5 and under. The Canaries baseball team takes on the Chicago Dogs. First pitch at Sioux Falls Stadium is at 5:35 p.m. Enjoy sprint car, street stock and hobby stock racing at I-90 Speedway in Hartford, SD. Gates open at 5 p.m. Hot laps are at 6:30 p.m. The races start at 7 p.m. Admission is $20, $10 for children and free for ages 12 and under. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Committee advances bill to define male, female for Nebraska sports, bathrooms, state agencies
State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha, left, is the lead sponsor of the "Stand With Women Act" to define school sports teams, bathrooms and locker rooms as male or female, as defined in her bill. It also would generally apply across state agencies. Jan. 10, 2025. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner) LINCOLN — A Nebraska legislative committee, voting along partisan lines, advanced a proposal Thursday to define 'male' and 'female' in state law that seeks to restrict student-athlete participation and bathroom use by sex at birth. The Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee, in a 5-3 vote, advanced Legislative Bill 89, the 'Stand With Women Act' from State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha. The bill mirrors executive orders from President Donald Trump this year and Gov. Jim Pillen in 2023 that sought to define sex as binary, including for athletics, school bathrooms and state agencies. The Nebraska School Activities Association, for most K-12 sports, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association, for college sports, have already announced that they and their member schools would comply with the executive orders. Kauth told the Nebraska Examiner she was grateful for the committee's work and help from all senators, including some on a bipartisan basis, to improve the bill. LB 89 was introduced at Pillen's request. 'Looking forward to the debate on the floor and encourage every senator to 'Stand with Women' and vote yes on this very common sense bill,' Kauth said in a text after her bill's advancement. Kauth's bill, through an amendment the committee also adopted 5-3, would define sex as male or female based on whether someone 'naturally has, had, will or would have, but for a congenital anomaly or intentional or unintentional disruption, the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports and utilizes' either eggs (female, woman or girl) or sperm (male, man or boy) for fertilization. To participate in single-sex intramural or interscholastic sports in public schools, or for private schools competing against public schools, students would need to confirm their sex via a document signed by a doctor or signed under the authority of a doctor. Female student-athletes could participate in male sports if there is no female alternative, such as football or wrestling, and coed sports would still be applicable. A previous version of the bill would have required a doctor's 'attestation,' which had raised among opponents on the committee — State Sens. John Cavanaugh, Dunixi Guereca and Megan Hunt, all of Omaha — that this would require a notarized statement. State Sen. Dave Wordekemper of Fremont, who serves on the Government Committee, said he and Kauth worked on the language because they wanted a way to verify a child's sex. Both said they envisioned the doctor's confirmation coming during a physical, which is typically required to play sports. Kauth said the declaration is important as shown through the NCAA, which plans to use a student-athlete's birth certificate to verify sex. Over 40 states, including Nebraska, allow someone to change the listed sex on their birth certificates. Hunt, a progressive nonpartisan senator, asked what 'male' or 'female' box a doctor should check for an intersex student. She and Cavanaugh asked if doctors would need to do a genital inspection, which Kauth and committee members have said is a 'stretch' and isn't in the bill. Cavanaugh said the bill reminded him of a 'sumptuary law,' or a law often rooted in religious or moral grounds to uphold social order. Among the first that comes to mind, he said after the vote, is 'something like the Taliban,' such as dictating how women should wear a hijab. He pointed to a section of LB 89 that states the proposal serves an 'important governmental objective of protecting the privacy of individuals and shielding students' bodies from the opposite sex' 'Seems dangerously similar to me,' Cavanaugh said. State Sen. Bob Andersen of Sarpy County, vice chair of the committee, pushed back and said privacy and protecting women were important goals that the bill supports. Cavanaugh and Hunt said gender isn't as easy as proponents make it out to be, with Cavanaugh adding: 'The fact that we're on amendment number 'x,' the fact that it took at least three different bites of the apple to define what a man and a woman are, is a clear indication that this is a space that government should not be involved in.' Hunt criticized Andersen and State Sen. Dan Lonowski of Hastings for voting against a separate bill Thursday, LB 224 from Guereca, to require 12 weeks of paid maternity leave for state employees yet voting for LB 89. Guereca's bill, his 2025 priority, advanced from committee 6-2. State Sen. Rita Sanders of Bellevue, committee chair, said that Kauth's bill had received plenty of feedback for and against, and she said the bill should be up to the full Legislature, not an eight-member committee. She pointed to Title IX and watching it be 'slowly, very slowly, get implemented.' The federal civil rights law paved the way for women's athletics and banned sex-based discrimination in schools or universities receiving federal funds. 'Yes, we need to protect those women's rights,' Sanders said. Public schools and universities would need to designate all bathrooms and locker rooms for use by males, females or as single-occupancy. Restrooms also could be designated for family use. LB 89 initially sought similar designations for state agency bathrooms, which the amendment removes. Instead, agencies from the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services and Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services to the Nebraska Department of Motor Vehicles and Nebraska Department of Economic Development would need to broadly define a person's sex as male or female Trump's Feb. 5 executive order pledges to pull federal funds from educational programs that fail to allow transgender student-athletes to participate on a team based on gender identity, not sex at birth. From 2018 through February, eight students had applied to participate in Nebraska high school sports based on their gender identity under the NSAA's Gender Participation Policy. It offers a path for students to participate on sports teams different than the student's sex at birth and requires medical and physiological testing. The organization has declined to say how many students it approved under the policy. In December, NCAA President Charlie Baker told a U.S. Senate panel that he was aware of fewer than 10 active transgender student-athletes out of the NCAA's 510,000 participants. At least a couple of Nebraska school districts had already adopted separate local sports participation policies similar to Kauth's bill and the executive orders. State Sen. Merv Riepe of Ralston confirmed to the Examiner that he was still 'leaning' toward not voting for Kauth's bill. He said he wants to protect women's sports but that the NSAA, NCAA and the multiple executive orders had already done so. Riepe, a former hospital administrator, said he was concerned the amendment was creating additional and 'unnecessary' work for doctors. Thus far, legislation seeking to enshrine the executive orders into federal and state law have stalled. In Congress, a bill passed the U.S. House but stalled in the Senate. Nebraska's congressional members supported the bills. In Nebraska, Riepe and State Sen. Tom Brandt of Plymouth were the two Republicans to not vote in favor of Kauth's 'Sports and Spaces Act' in 2024, which was limited at the time to K-12 sports and bathrooms. Contentious bills require 33 votes to advance, and Republicans in the officially nonpartisan Legislature hold just enough seats. No Democrats supported Kauth's previous, narrower bill. She is still working on getting 33 votes this year but said LB 89 would 'at least get people on the record.' If LB 89 falls short, Kauth's proposal will return next year, and she'll continue working on it. While Kauth has praised the executive orders, she has repeatedly said that executive orders can be reversed. Riepe said in February that 'if Trump's executive order can stand for the four years of his term, then LB 89 can wait four years.' Kauth has designated LB 89 as her 2025 priority, the first senator to do so, which increases the likelihood that her bill will be debated this year. Speaker John Arch of La Vista sets the daily agenda. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Committee delays vote on Nebraska bill to define male, female in law for sports, bathrooms
Supporters of State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha's Stand With Women Act join a news conference. In front is State Sen. Rita Sanders of Bellevue, chair of the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. Jan. 10, 2025. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner) LINCOLN — A Nebraska legislative committee has delayed, for now, a final vote on whether to advance a proposal to define 'male' and 'female' in state law and restrict student-athlete participation by sex at birth. The Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee elected to not yet vote on advancing Legislative Bill 89, the 'Stand With Women Act' from State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha, over questions from some committee members about whether a proposed amendment would require all students to get a notarized doctor's note of that student's sex to participate in single-sex sports. State Sen. Rita Sanders of Bellevue, the committee chair, said 'more clarity would provide a better debate' after Omaha State Sens. John Cavanaugh, Dunixi Guereca and Megan Hunt asked whether a a doctor's 'attestation' would implicate the need for a notary. Hunt said this would increase costs for some families. She asked her colleagues to consider if they lived in the land of the free and thought of all the people who died for the freedom to play sports who would need to find a notary to do so. Cavanaugh said the requirement should lead to a new public hearing. State Sen. Dan Lonowski of Hastings responded that the committee needed to consider the freedom of other kids, which State Sen. Bob Andersen of north-central Sarpy County echoed. State Sen. Dave Wordekmper of Fremont said he had talked with Kauth about the amendment because both desired a way to verify a child's sex for participation in single-sex sports. His thought, he said, was that a doctor could document a child's sex during a routine physical. Kauth told the Nebraska Examiner after the committee's decision that she felt good the one word was the only hold up, which she described as an 'easy fix' to change the word 'attestation.' 'Knowing that it's a term of legal art, we'll pick a word that doesn't mean 'notarized,' and I appreciate them figuring that out,' Kauth said. 'What I'm talking about is a sports physical.' Sanders said the committee will take a few days to consider possible tweaks to the bill and a path forward before reconsidering Kauth's bill. Public schools and universities would need to designate all bathrooms and locker rooms for use by males, females or single-occupancy. Restrooms could also be designated for family use. LB 89 initially sought similar designations for state agency bathrooms, which the amendment would remove. Instead agencies such as the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services and Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services would need to define a person's sex as male or female. The bill mirrors executive orders from President Donald Trump earlier this year and Gov. Jim Pillen in 2023 that sought to define sex as binary, including for athletics, school bathrooms and state agencies. The Nebraska School Activities Association, for most K-12 sports, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association have already announced that they would comply with the executive orders. Kauth said the declaration of a student's sex is important in the case of the NCAA, which said it would determine a child's sex by birth certificate, which Kauth said can be changed in about 44 states, including Nebraska. She added: 'If we're talking about keeping girls safe on the field and privacy, we need to make sure that we're actually doing that.' Kauth's bill, with the proposed amendment, would define sex as male or female based on whether someone 'naturally has, had, will or would have, but for a congenital anomaly or intentional or unintentional disruption, the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports and utilizes' either eggs (female) or sperm (male) for fertilization. Trump's Feb. 5 executive order pledges to pull federal funds from educational programs that fail to comply with his order. From 2018 through February, eight students had applied to participate in Nebraska high school sports based on their gender identity under the NSAA's Gender Participation Policy. It offers a path for students to participate on sports teams different than the student's sex at birth and requires medical and physiological testing. The organization has declined to say how many students it approved under the policy. In December, NCAA President Charlie Baker told a U.S. Senate panel that he was aware of fewer than 10 active transgender student-athletes out of the NCAA's 510,000 participants. At least a couple of Nebraska school districts have already adopted separate local sports participation policies similar to Kauth's bill and the executive orders. State Sen. Merv Riepe of Ralston, prior to seeing the latest amendment, told the Examiner this week that he was 'leaning' to not vote for Kauth's bill. He said he wants to protect women's sports but that the NSAA, NCAA and executive orders had already done so. Legislation seeking to enshrine the executive orders into federal and state law have stalled. In Congress, a bill passed the U.S. House but stalled in the Senate. Nebraska's congressional members supported the bills. In Nebraska, Riepe and State Sen. Tom Brandt of Plymouth were the two Republicans to not vote in favor of Kauth's 'Sports and Spaces Act' in 2024 that was limited at the time to K-12 sports and bathrooms. Kauth has praised the executive orders but has repeatedly said that executive orders can be reversed. However, Riepe said in February that 'if Trump's executive order can stand for the four years of his term, then LB 89 can wait four years.' Contentious bills require 33 votes to advance, and Republicans in the officially nonpartisan Legislature hold just enough seats. No Democrats supported Kauth's previous, narrower bill. State Sen. Jane Raybould of Lincoln on Thursday withdrew a competing bill to Kauth's proposal, LB 605, that sought to largely put the NSAA's now-defunct Gender Participation Policy into law. The bill had not yet received a public hearing, and Raybould's withdrawal motion passed 34-0. Kauth has designated LB 89 as her 2025 priority, the first senator to do so, which increases the likelihood that her bill will be debated this year. Speaker John Arch of La Vista sets the daily agenda. Sanders told reporters that Kauth has indicated she is 'very close' to getting 33 votes. Asked how she would vote, Sanders told reporters: 'I'm not real sure until we have some more clarity on the bill, because how do you debate a bill when you're not sure what exactly we're debating, right? So let's clean up some language so we have a more focused bill for floor debate.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Nebraska lawmaker pushes to overhaul elections, early voting over integrity concerns
Teresa Ranken, 59, of Lincoln, hangs up signs reminding voters of acceptable forms of identification cards needed for voting on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, at Sower Church in Lincoln, Neb. (Sammy Smith/Nebraska News Service) LINCOLN — State Sen. Rick Holdcroft of Bellevue says he wants to eliminate online voter registration, restrict absentee voting, provide more security for ballot boxes and require hand-counting of election results, citing election integrity concerns. State and local election officials testified against Holdcroft's Legislative Bill 541 during its public hearing Wednesday before the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee, questioning the need for changes to election law and raising concerns about possibly violating federal law and the potential costs to taxpayers. Other bill opponents said the changes would introduce unnecessary burdens to voters and make it harder for Nebraskans to participate in elections. Holdcroft said while he has confidence in the integrity of Nebraska elections, the bill is 'simply to give peace of mind to the electorate and our state regarding the security of our elections.' Supporters of the bill claim it would prevent voter fraud and 'cheating' in state elections, pointing to the 2020 election, when President Donald Trump falsely claimed victory but lost to former President Joe Biden. The Nebraska proposal is being discussed as Republicans across the country ramped up unproven claims of non-citizen voting and fraud. Deputy Nebraska Secretary of State Wayne Bena, who oversees the state's Elections Division, said state elections officials appreciated Holdcroft's interest in election integrity. He said Secretary of State Robert Evnen agrees with some provisions of LB 541, such as tightening security around ballot boxes, but said Evnen has practical concerns about hand counting and legal concerns about voter registration changes. '[Hand] counting, which is statistically the least reliable way that you can count ballots, add significant times and add significant cost to conducting an election,' Bena said. Tracy Overstreet, Hall County Election Commissioner, said during the hearing that the proposed changes would require her to hire more staff and violate the federal National Voting Rights Act because of the way the bill would restrict voter registration by mail. According to the bill's fiscal note, the changes Holdcroft seeks would cost the state nearly $1 million when Nebraska is facing a significant budget shortfall. Danna Seevers, who testified in support of the bill, said the committee 'should act to honor the will of the people who overwhelmingly elected Donald Trump in 2024 and carry out his agenda,' adding that LB 541 delivers on that with 'surgical precision.' Trump met with state governors late last month, including Gov. Jim Pillen, and urged them to modify their voting laws to implement paper ballots, one-day voting, voter ID and proof of citizenship. However, Most states, including Nebraska, already have voter ID laws and utilize paper ballots, often as backups, and only U.S. citizens are legally allowed to vote in federal elections. 'This isn't just a bill,' Seevers said. 'It's a battle cry for election integrity that echoes Trump's call to action.' Voting advocacy groups said the bill would place unnecessary burdens on voters. 'By restricting early voting to a handful of the scenarios, voting in Nebraska will become more challenging and less convenient,' said Cesar Garcia, a Nebraska Appleseed's Community Organizer. 'As a consequence, our state will likely see lower voter turnout.' Nebraskans passed a state constitutional amendment in 2022 requiring the Legislature to implement voter ID in Nebraska. Fewer voters were turned away under the law than in other states with similar laws. The committee took no immediate action on the bill. Bena said the Secretary of State and the county election commissioners would implement the Holdcroft bill if the Legislature passes it. 'However, if you're asking our office [if] such a law is justified?' Bena said. 'The answer is no.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
08-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Public hearing focuses on whether to define male, female in Nebraska law
At left, Abbi Swatsworth, executive director of OutNebraska, leads a Feb. 7, 2025, news conference in support of transgender Nebraskans at the Nebraska State Capitol. At right, State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha, center, stands at a news conference after introducing her "Stand With Women Act" to define male and female in state law on Jan. 10, 2025. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner) LINCOLN — Dozens of Nebraskans, with a majority in opposition, testified Friday on legislation seeking to create sex-based definitions of 'male' and 'female' in state law, on a bill largely aimed at K-12 and collegiate sports, bathrooms and state government. Legislative Bill 89, from State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha and introduced at the request of Gov. Jim Pillen, would adopt the 'Stand With Women Act.' The bill would define sex in Nebraska as binary — male or female — based on whether someone 'naturally has, had, will or would have, but for a congenital anomaly or intentional or unintentional disruption, the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports and utilizes' either eggs (female) or sperm (male) for fertilization. The legislation mirrors a 'Women's Bill of Rights' that Pillen enacted by executive order in August 2023 and multiple similar orders from President Donald Trump over the past few weeks. 'This is not a political issue,' Kauth told the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. 'This is an issue of common sense, adherence to biology and establishing protections for women and girls.' Kauth received supportive testimony from Pillen, the Nebraska Family Alliance, Alliance Defending Freedom, Nebraska Catholic Conference and a couple of high-profile student-athletes, including Selina Soule, a former track and field athlete from Connecticut, and Rebekah Allick, a member of the Nebraska volleyball team. 'Maybe I'm too long in the tooth,' Pillen testified. 'We just need to move back a generation and have common sense.' Michelle Jud spoke against the bill on behalf of Rainbow Parents of Nebraska, a recently formed coalition of parents advocating for LGBTQ youths and their families. 'As parents of queer kids, we knew from the moment our children came out to us that they would face more challenges than most,' Jud said. 'We didn't know how hard we would have to fight to protect their basic rights.' Jud echoed a fellow 'rainbow parent' Friday in saying that being queer is the 'least interesting thing' about their children, who are artists, singers, poets, multi-sport athletes and leaders in student government. More than 100 people testified, and about 20 spoke in favor. Opponents stretched the hearing well into the evening, led by transgender youths and adults, parents, multiple nonprofits and the school board president of the Omaha Public Schools. 'We are here, and we will not be erased,' said Jessie McGrath, a native of Max, Nebraska, veteran and transgender woman who lives in Kauth's district. Amos Sobotka, a Nebraska native, who is transgender, said his gender transition gave him 'peace' and that passing Kauth's LB 89 would risk his livelihood, family and community. 'I was raised to believe that all people have value here,' Sobotka said. 'I did not come all this way to be degraded and dismissed, and I refuse to accept this travesty.' Kauth's bill, and an amendment she unveiled Friday, would require public K-12 schools, postsecondary institutions and state agencies to designate all bathrooms for use by females, males or families. Restrooms could also be single occupancy and be gender neutral. The amendment strips placing such requirements on private schools, a decision Kauth said she reached while crafting the amendment with the national Alliance Defending Freedom. Public schools, and private schools that compete against or are part of an athletic association with public schools, would need to designate sports teams as for males, females or mixed. Female students could participate in male-only sports if there is no female alternative, such as football or wrestling. One of Trump's executive orders called for executive agencies to schools or colleges that allow trans student-athletes to participate. On Thursday, a day after Trump signed that order, the National Collegiate Athletic Association reversed allowing trans student-athletes to compete in women's sports. Kauth said that while she is 'thrilled' about the Trump policy, it can be overturned, and states need specific legislation. State Sen. Merv Riepe of Ralston, who opposed a 2024 bill from Kauth that was limited at the time to just K-12 sports, restrooms and locker rooms, said he likes Trump's executive order, describing it as straightforward and that it 'took no prisoners.' That Kauth bill fell short by two votes of advancing. 'I will see how this plays out in the next 30 days and defer on any state legislative action,' Riepe said in a Wednesday text. NCAA President Charlie Baker told a U.S. Senate panel in December that he was aware of fewer than 10 active transgender student-athletes out of the NCAA's 510,000 participants. Jeff Stauss, an assistant director for the Nebraska School Activities Association (NSAA), said eight students have applied since 2018 under an existing Gender Participation Policy for the NSAA, the group most public and private schools in the state coordinate with for school athletics. The policy requires transgender student-athletes to provide affirmation on their gender identity. Trans female students must also demonstrate through medical examination and physiological testing that they do 'not possess physical… or physiological advantages over genetic females of the same age group.' Trans girls must also take one year of hormones or go through gender reassignment surgery, which was banned in the state after Oct. 1, 2023. Kauth led the legislative push for that prohibition as well, which also mandated months of gender-identity-focused therapy for youths with gender dysphoria before minors could access puberty blockers or hormone blockers. Jane Erdenberger, president of the Omaha school board, said the previous restrictions could lead to at least a two-year delay for trans girls before they could even be considered for athletic participation. She said Kauth's new bill interferes with an OPS vision that every student is daily prepared for success and learning. Kauth has said school districts can choose whether to use the NSAA model, such as Kearney or Norfolk Public Schools requiring sports participation based on a student's sex at birth. No public school officials spoke in favor of Kauth's bill. Stauss said NSAA doesn't release specific information about its applications, such as how many were accepted, 'to protect the privacy and legal rights of the students and their families.' 'The NSAA is aware of President Trump's executive order and we are monitoring the legislation in the Nebraska Unicameral,' Stauss said in a statement to the Nebraska Examiner. 'The NSAA will comply with any new federal or state law.' Allick, the Husker volleyball player who testified, joined Kauth in January to unveil the Stand With Women Act. Allick said Friday that there were real-world problems to address — such as children dying, human trafficking, homelessness and hunger — but that women and girls need protection. 'Forgive me for my brazenness and insensitivity to this right now, but women have fought too freaking hard to have space in politics, doctors' offices, classrooms and sports for all to be taken over yet again by men,' Allick said. The UNL student-athlete said those with gender dysphoria need compassion, but she said she didn't want to see a penis in her locker room. She told the committee not to sacrifice women's safety or opportunities or wait until something tragic happens before acting. 'My locker room is a safe space,' said Allick, who still competes at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. 'It is a place of sisterhood, a place to talk about love lives, hardships, period cramps, things that women talk about and only women understand.' Kauth said whether even one girl or woman is made to feel threatened or unsafe, or if they lose an opportunity, is, 'by definition, a problem.' Soule, from Connecticut, is one of the lead plaintiffs in an ongoing lawsuit against trans-inclusive sports policies in her state. She told the committee not to let future student-athletes compete against trans student-athletes, as she did in high school. 'I remember what it was like in the lineup for the race to get into my blocks wanting to win but knowing the outcome long before the start of the race,' Soule testified. Soule said lawmakers risk the 'complete eradication' of women's sports if they don't step in. Former student-athletes Emma Haith, from Burke High School and UNL, and Dahly Long, from Omaha Central High School and a senior social work major at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, spoke against the bill. Long said LB 89 fosters exclusion rather than fairness, and Haith, citing her faith as a Catholic, said she believes in treating all people with dignity and compassion. 'They [sports] teach teamwork, discipline and inclusion,' Haith said at a noon news conference. 'This bill contradicts those values by targeting transgender youth and denying them the opportunities that benefit all young people.' Greg Brown, an attorney, professor of exercise science at the University of Nebraska at Kearney and a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine, said that to say 'sex is complicated' is 'intentionally disingenuous about a universal and simple truth.' 'Human beings are either male or female,' Brown said. 'Every human that has ever existed owes their existence to the unification of the male gamete sperm with the female gamete ova. There's no other option when it comes to human procreation.' Brown said that includes intersex people, about 0.02% of people, he said, who have a sex development disorder. Male student-athletes also have an advantage as young as 8 years old, Brown said. 'When someone says, 'Well, it's only a few trans women,' they're asking us to accept unfair male advantages in the female sporting category,' Brown testified. Freshman State Sen. Dan Lonowski of Hastings aided Kauth with his questions, saying he understood where she was coming from. He served as a wrestling coach for 35 years, but it wasn't until about five years ago that girls competed, when he saw physical differences. Kauth's bill could offer intersex people accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act, though under questioning from State Sen. John Cavanaugh of Omaha she said she didn't know if intersex people were covered already or what accommodations would exist. 'Is it your opinion that trans people have a mental disorder?' Cavanaugh asked Kauth. 'Yes,' she replied. Cavanaugh asked how the Legislature could direct the University of Nebraska to adopt her bill, as under the Nebraska Constitution and state law the Legislature can't dictate how NU manages its facilities — that's up to the NU Board of Regents. Kauth said enforcement would be like any other law or school policy, leaving wide latitude to colleges, universities and public schools how to implement the directives. Erin Feichtinger of the Women's Fund of Omaha and Abbi Swatsworth of OutNebraska said that this enforcement model would open up all women to the subjective view of what is 'female.' Swatsworth said the bill reminded her of the Jim Crow era, and she questioned whether people could be forced to 'prove' their gender before being allowed to enter a bathroom under the law. Kathy Wilmot of Beaver City, an NU regent who testified in favor of the bill for the Eagle Forum, and in her personal capacity, told the Examiner that regents aren't currently considering a policy such as Kauth's. State Sen. Megan Hunt of Omaha voiced concern about putting into law that 'women are weaker when we know not all women are weaker than all men.' She questioned what legal implications adding those findings could have for other cases 'down the road,' such as equal employment or fair pay. Kauth, who chairs the Legislature's Business and Labor Committee, said Hunt's questions were 'quite a stretch' and that whether women were 'weaker' was in Hunt's words, not her own. 'If that's not your intention, I'm happy to have you correct the record right now,' Hunt said. Kauth responded: 'Physically and biologically women and men grow differently, and women are consistently less strong than men.' The committee took no immediate action on Kauth's bill. If advanced, the bill would require at least 33 votes in the 49-member Legislature to overcome a promised filibuster. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
