Latest news with #WyomingEquality
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Wyoming Supreme Court hears oral arguments in appeal of high-profile abortion case
CHEYENNE — A small group of abortion rights protesters gathered outside the Wyoming State Supreme Court on Wednesday as the court prepared to hear oral arguments in the appeal of a high-profile abortion case. Justices heard arguments in Wyoming v. Johnson, a case in which the appellees claim the state's abortion bans violate state constitutional rights, including rights to equality, due process, freedom of religion and access to health care. The lawsuit was first filed in 2022 after state lawmakers passed a series of laws targeting abortion, including a 'trigger' ban on abortions across the state, with exceptions to protect the life of the mother and in cases of sexual assault or incest. It was brought by Wyoming reproductive-age women, OB-GYNs, Wellspring Health Access (the state's sole abortion clinic in Casper) and Chelsea's Fund, a nonprofit that financially helps pregnant people access an abortion. Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens temporarily blocked the anti-abortion laws in 2022 from going into effect while the case was being litigated. The Legislature passed two more anti-abortion laws in 2023, the Life is a Human Right Act in House Bill 152 and a ban on abortion pills in Senate File 109. These laws also were temporarily blocked by Owens under pending judicial review. In November, Owens ruled that the anti-abortion laws passed by the Legislature in both 2022 and 2023 violated Wyoming's Constitution, specifically Article 1, Section 38, which allows a competent adult to make their own health care decisions. The state appealed Owens' ruling, moving the case to the Wyoming Supreme Court, where oral arguments were heard Wednesday in Cheyenne. While justices won't issue their ruling in the case for weeks to come, the arguments garnered substantial community attention, with representatives from both sides of the issue packing the courtroom Wednesday. 'I showed up to support abortion rights, and mostly I showed up to protest so that people know that they're not alone in it,' Wyoming Equality deputy director Ammon Medina said. 'And I think it may be necessary to say, I did not show up to try to put pressure on the court.' Wyoming Equality, Wyoming United for Freedom and Pro-Choice Wyoming organized Wednesday's demonstration in front of the Supreme Court Building on Capitol Avenue to represent the Wyomingites who believe abortion is health care, according to a news release. 'I think we need to be vocal,' Pro-Choice Wyoming Executive Director Birdie Forsyth said. 'I think letters to the editor are fantastic, (and) kitchen table conversations with families and friends help them understand that abortion care is pivotal, not only for like individual women. It's pivotal for our state.' Forsyth noted that the court's decision could have major implications for the state. Wyoming has limited resources for pregnancy, nearly half of the state's counties lack a practicing OB-GYN, and states with strict anti-abortion laws typically struggle to recruit OB-GYNs. 'If OB-GYNs can't perform the standard of care in our state, they're going to leave,' Forsyth said. 'Abortion is health care, and if they are worried about a lawsuit, whether or not a woman is near death enough, they're not going to come here and practice.' Many of the protesters noted that their concern was with government overreach into personal decisions, a sentiment Wyoming Equality Executive Director Sara Burlingame included in a statement. 'Regardless of how the court decides this case, everyday Wyomingites are waking up to the fact that our rights are being stripped from us by an increasingly power-hungry state,' Burlingame said in the release. 'Now is the time to stand with your Wyoming neighbors and claim the independence promised us by the Wyoming Constitution. We are confident that the freedom-loving people of Wyoming will recognize that respect for the rule of law and the individual are worth fighting for.' Determining life Representing the state, Special Assistant Attorney General Jay A. Jerde argued abortion isn't health care, because the decision doesn't always maintain or restore the pregnant person's health. Jerde said language in Section 38(a) gives a person the ability to make their own health care decision, with emphasis on the word 'own.' When a pregnant woman decides to get an abortion, he said, it's not her own decision — she's deciding for two people. Justice John G. Fenn said this interpretation potentially 'opens a viability analysis' that could get complicated fast. Jerde said the concept that an unborn baby is a human being was 'widely accepted' before the federal Roe v. Wade case was decided. Justice Kari Jo Gray asked who decides that an unborn baby is a human being. 'Who gets to make that call?' Gray asked, adding there is no secular or religious consensus on when life begins. Jerde said the Legislature should be the one to decide, since lawmakers are elected by and answer directly to the people of the state. Part of the reality of regulating abortions is deciding when life begins, he said. Since legislators create the regulation, then the legislators should decide when life begins, he said. Justice Lynne Boomgaarden asked if there is a secular (non-religious) basis for determining when life begins. Jerde said it is found in Article 1, Section 2 of the Wyoming Constitution. This section states 'In their inherent right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, all members of the human race are equal.' Jerde argued that the broad definition of 'human race' implied that the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness extended to the fetus, as well. Gray also posed the question about who determines when life begins to attorney Peter Modlin, who spoke on behalf of the appellees. Modlin replied that the question was a religious one that had been debated for centuries, and that the state should not take a side. Gray disputed that, saying it's a philosophical question, since there isn't even agreement on the issue among religious groups. Again, she asked, 'If there is no agreement, who gets to decide?' Modlin said the state shouldn't decide which religious viewpoint is its viewpoint. He argued there is 'no non-religious basis for personhood.' He said that in Judaism, for example, a baby becomes a person once it breathes its first breath outside the mother's womb. 'The state has no role in this debate,' Modlin said. Fundamental rights Modlin furthered the appellant's argument by adding that the bans violated existing rights. He told the court that the question at hand is whether the Legislature may deprive women of fundamental constitutional rights for the duration of pregnancy. He argued the state's laws do exactly the opposite of what they claim to do, which is to protect women and unborn babies. One justice quickly pointed out this is not the premise of the case, saying it's a matter of balancing the rights of the unborn with the rights of women. Modlin responded that the state has maintained abortions harm women, and that its laws are meant to protect women and prenatal life. Marci Bramlet, a lawyer for the abortion clinic, doctors and women who sued to challenge the law, argued that the bans violate multiple fundamental rights. 'These bans force women to surrender their rights any time they are pregnant,' Bramlet said. 'And, in reality, every time they are pregnant, because these exceptions are unworkable, intentionally so.' Bramlet further argued the state's anti-abortion bans 'force women to surrender their rights' the moment they become pregnant. She went on to say there is no equivalent of this type of regulation on men's health care. The state of Wyoming has yet to regulate a man's right to a vasectomy, she noted. Jerde responded to the appellant's argument, saying that while the Wyoming Constitution clearly protects natural rights, that protection only applies to existing rights. 'There is no natural right to make health care decisions; I found no cases that talk about that,' Jerde said. 'There is no natural right to abortion. I found no cases that talk about that.' Jerde added that because men and women are not 'similarly situated,' equal protection does not apply, a point initially made by Gray. Bramlet did point out that previous courts have determined that differences in gender do not inherently qualify two groups as differently situated. Following the arguments, the court entered recess until further notice. The court has 90 days to deliver a written opinion based on the arguments presented Wednesday. Should they uphold the district court's ruling, the bans will not go into effect. However, should the court side with the state, the bans will go into effect immediately.
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
As Wyoming slide further to the right, legislators double down on trans bills
When Wyoming legislators in 2022 passed a law banning trans girls from competing in middle and high school girls' sports, the Cowboy State, by its governor's own estimate, had a grand total of four transgender student athletes competing within its boundaries. Still, in this year's legislative session, which wrapped up on Friday, trans athletes were again a focus of lawmakers. They introduced bills to extend the ban on trans women in athletics to intercollegiate sports and ban universities from competing against teams with trans women. Lawmakers also proposed legislation requiring public facilities from restrooms to sleeping quarters to correspond with assigned sex at birth, restrooms in public schools to have exclusive use designations by assigned sex at birth, prohibiting the state from requiring the use of preferred pronouns, and establishing legal definitions for 'biological sex', 'man' and 'woman'. Five of the seven bills made it through the legislature. The volume of proposals spotlights the new conservative vision of the role of government emerging in the state, as well as the Republican divisions on the issue. Debate on trans-focused bills isn't new to this legislative session. In 2022, Mark Gordon, Wyoming's governor, described the state's trans sports bill as 'draconian' but still let it pass into law. Last year, 10 bills were introduced on the topic, and the legislature enacted a ban on gender affirming care for minors. Wyoming politicians pushed controversy over the inclusion of a trans woman in a Wyoming sorority in 2022, and in 2024 over the University of Wyoming's scheduled volleyball game against San Jose State University, whose team has a trans woman. Wyoming ultimately forfeited the game. But the intense focus on the issue comes as Wyoming, never exactly a liberal state, has slid further to the right in recent years, a trend evidenced by an escalation of social issue bills that wouldn't be out of place in Washington DC or other red-state legislatures. For Santi Murillo, the first trans athlete at the University of Wyoming, the influx of bills has been dehumanizing. 'I consider myself to be a good person who contributes back to my community. But because I'm trans, I'm being attacked,' Murillo, who's also the communications director for LGBTQ nonprofit Wyoming Equality, said. 'That's what a lot of that fear comes from, is being labeled as Santi the trans person, not Santi the cheer coach, not Santi my neighbor.' ••• Several Republican lawmakers who've introduced or sponsored trans bills this year said their proposals were aimed at protecting women and girls. 'To protect safe spaces and to create level playing fields for women, biological women, that's the sole intent of these types of bills,' said Republican representative Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, the chair of the state's newly empowered Freedom Caucus and the primary sponsor of 'Biological Males in Women's Sports'. It's a topic legislators say they have found high on the minds of their constituents. 'I have a very conservative rural district, and they just want to see these things addressed and some policies put out,' said Martha Lawley, a Republican representative who sponsored two related bills this session. She said that she heard more about the topic than any other from her constituents in the past year. That concern is new, said Murillo, now 27. Murillo said she didn't see this level of fear in the Wyoming she grew up in. She transitioned while a cheerleader at the University of Wyoming, which put her squarely in the public eye. 'I had a really positive transition experience for the most part. Especially doing so very publicly,' Murillo said. 'UW games are huge, especially football games. There's no hiding there.' Murillo views the current debate as driven by politicians, not people. So does Sara Burlingame, the director at Wyoming Equality. She believes that some see the spotlight on trans issues as an effective wedge issue to both motivate hardline voters to the polls, and split conservatives, much like efforts to ban gay marriage used to. 'Far-right Republicans recognized that they used to be able to fundraise and campaign off of gay panic,' Burlingame said. 'They're looking at what hits that sweet spot of lighting up people's amygdala and getting them all fired up. And they feel like, hey, if someone you know was carrying this message, I would go and vote for them. I would drive myself to the polls.' The focus on trans issues detracts from conversations about other major challenges ahead in the state, Burlingame said, like declining revenues in the gas and oil market that are leaving a gap in public funding. 'I think they don't have a solution for that,' Burlingame said of some Republican legislators. 'So their solution is to attack trans kids.' Burlingame sees the hyper-focus on gender as a departure from decades of Wyoming politics that erred toward libertarianism and small government, a departure that sped up this year as Wyoming's Freedom Caucus became the first chapter of the nationally-based Freedom Caucus to take control of a state house. 'In the past, we had old, white, rancher Republican men who had no fondness for different gender identities or sexual orientation,' she said. 'But they had a very specific belief in the role of government, and they wouldn't vote to take anybody's rights away because they just didn't believe that was the role of government.' Senator Cale Case is one of those Republicans outspoken in his opposition to the trans bills. Case, in the legislature since 1993, questions what problem they aim to solve, and said their sponsors are driven by fear. 'They don't like to hear the word tolerance. They talk about freedom, and they have lots of bills with freedom in the title, but their bills restrict freedoms,' Case said. Within supporters of the bills, there are divisions, too. Jayme Lien, the representative who brought the What is a Woman Act, said she has not spoken with LGBTQ Wyomingites about the bill. Lien pointed towards testimony from the national group Gays Against Groomers, designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a far-right extremist group of self-identified LGBTQ+ people engaged in anti-trans organizing, in support of her legislation and argued that the safety concerns of LGBTQ residents were misplaced. 'I just want them to know that this is to protect them as well. And I think in the long run, once it's implemented into law, they will see that this also protects them and their culture and community,' Lien argued. Republican senator Wendy Schuler brought the state's 2022 bill limiting trans girls' access to certain sports team, and she introduced 'Fairness in Sports – Intercollegiate Athletics' in this year's legislative session. Schuler, who competed in five varsity athletics at the University of Wyoming said that she 'doesn't know what the answer is' for transgender athletes in Wyoming, but that her priority is 'making sure our biological girls were all taken care of in terms of their access to athletics.' 'I understand the trans athletes here, she said. 'I totally get where they're coming from, because I had to sit on the sidelines while I was playing baseball with my brothers.' Schuler said that she consulted with teenagers and some transgender Wyomingites in writing her bills, which lead to exemptions for non-contact sports. While standing firm behind sports bills, Schuler derided the bills focused on bathroom usage and the legal definitions as an ineffective use of legislative time, and indicative of national theatrics meeting Wyoming politics. 'In terms of the bathroom stuff, and you know what is a woman and some of these other bills that have come through the pipe this year, I just think we had lots more important things we should have been focusing on,' Schuler said. 'But that's what the social issues of the day seem to be.' In what she owned as a 'contradiction', Schuler voted yes on all three bills that came before her. Schuler said she 'thinks the world' of Murillo, and Murillo and Burlingame also spoke kindly of Schuler. For Murillo, having friendships with people she views as infringing on her rights is complicated, but is a sort of necessity when advocating for LGBTQ+ rights in deep-red states. 'It's a totally different kind of ball game,' Murillo said. 'Doing this work in a red state, you have to be willing to have those conversations. You have to be willing to set aside those things, find that common ground.' If current political trends continue, Burlingame and Murillo fear that there will be less legislators willing to work out compromises. Wyoming's 2024 summer primary saw complete Republican upheaval and a glut of mailers, often accusing politicians of a 'radical gender agenda'. Senator Case said that there's pressure on elected officials in Wyoming to toe the line, or else. 'Some of my colleagues who still have a longer career ahead of them, and also have aspirations, are in agony on every one of these votes. These are good people, friends of mine,' Case said. 'I'm not doing that. I'm gonna get pounded for this. It might cost an election. But honestly, I don't think it's right and I feel so much better inside.' Murillo said in light of rhetoric surrounding the flood of legislation, she no longer considers Wyoming a safe place to be transgender. 'I definitely used to feel safe here, but no, not any more. I feel like the air has just shifted here,' Murillo said.
The Guardian
10-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
As Wyoming slide further to the right, legislators double down on trans bills
When Wyoming legislators in 2022 passed a law banning trans girls from competing in middle and high school girls' sports, the Cowboy State, by its governor's own estimate, had a grand total of four transgender student athletes competing within its boundaries. Still, in this year's legislative session, which wrapped up on Friday, trans athletes were again a focus of lawmakers. They introduced bills to extend the ban on trans women in athletics to intercollegiate sports and ban universities from competing against teams with trans women. Lawmakers also proposed legislation requiring public facilities from restrooms to sleeping quarters to correspond with assigned sex at birth, restrooms in public schools to have exclusive use designations by assigned sex at birth, prohibiting the state from requiring the use of preferred pronouns, and establishing legal definitions for 'biological sex', 'man' and 'woman'. Five of the seven bills made it through the legislature. The volume of proposals spotlights the new conservative vision of the role of government emerging in the state, as well as the Republican divisions on the issue. Debate on trans-focused bills isn't new to this legislative session. In 2022, Mark Gordon, Wyoming's governor, described the state's trans sports bill as 'draconian' but still let it pass into law. Last year, 10 bills were introduced on the topic, and the legislature enacted a ban on gender affirming care for minors. Wyoming politicians pushed controversy over the inclusion of a trans woman in a Wyoming sorority in 2022, and in 2024 over the University of Wyoming's scheduled volleyball game against San Jose State University, whose team has a trans woman. Wyoming ultimately forfeited the game. But the intense focus on the issue comes as Wyoming, never exactly a liberal state, has slid further to the right in recent years, a trend evidenced by an escalation of social issue bills that wouldn't be out of place in Washington DC or other red-state legislatures. For Santi Murillo, the first trans athlete at the University of Wyoming, the influx of bills has been dehumanizing. 'I consider myself to be a good person who contributes back to my community. But because I'm trans, I'm being attacked,' Murillo, who's also the communications director for LGBTQ nonprofit Wyoming Equality, said. 'That's what a lot of that fear comes from, is being labeled as Santi the trans person, not Santi the cheer coach, not Santi my neighbor.' Several Republican lawmakers who've introduced or sponsored trans bills this year said their proposals were aimed at protecting women and girls. 'To protect safe spaces and to create level playing fields for women, biological women, that's the sole intent of these types of bills,' said Republican representative Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, the chair of the state's newly empowered Freedom Caucus and the primary sponsor of 'Biological Males in Women's Sports'. It's a topic legislators say they have found high on the minds of their constituents. 'I have a very conservative rural district, and they just want to see these things addressed and some policies put out,' said Martha Lawley, a Republican representative who sponsored two related bills this session. She said that she heard more about the topic than any other from her constituents in the past year. That concern is new, said Murillo, now 27. Murillo said she didn't see this level of fear in the Wyoming she grew up in. She transitioned while a cheerleader at the University of Wyoming, which put her squarely in the public eye. 'I had a really positive transition experience for the most part. Especially doing so very publicly,' Murillo said. 'UW games are huge, especially football games. There's no hiding there.' Murillo views the current debate as driven by politicians, not people. So does Sara Burlingame, the director at Wyoming Equality. She believes that some see the spotlight on trans issues as an effective wedge issue to both motivate hardline voters to the polls, and split conservatives, much like efforts to ban gay marriage used to. 'Far-right Republicans recognized that they used to be able to fundraise and campaign off of gay panic,' Burlingame said. 'They're looking at what hits that sweet spot of lighting up people's amygdala and getting them all fired up. And they feel like, hey, if someone you know was carrying this message, I would go and vote for them. I would drive myself to the polls.' The focus on trans issues detracts from conversations about other major challenges ahead in the state, Burlingame said, like declining revenues in the gas and oil market that are leaving a gap in public funding. 'I think they don't have a solution for that,' Burlingame said of some Republican legislators. 'So their solution is to attack trans kids.' Burlingame sees the hyper-focus on gender as a departure from decades of Wyoming politics that erred toward libertarianism and small government, a departure that sped up this year as Wyoming's Freedom Caucus became the first chapter of the nationally-based Freedom Caucus to take control of a state house. 'In the past, we had old, white, rancher Republican men who had no fondness for different gender identities or sexual orientation,' she said. 'But they had a very specific belief in the role of government, and they wouldn't vote to take anybody's rights away because they just didn't believe that was the role of government.' Senator Cale Case is one of those Republicans outspoken in his opposition to the trans bills. Case, in the legislature since 1993, questions what problem they aim to solve, and said their sponsors are driven by fear. 'They don't like to hear the word tolerance. They talk about freedom, and they have lots of bills with freedom in the title, but their bills restrict freedoms,' Case said. Within supporters of the bills, there are divisions, too. Jayme Lien, the representative who brought the What is a Woman Act, said she has not spoken with LGBTQ Wyomingites about the bill. Lien pointed towards testimony from the national group Gays Against Groomers, designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a far-right extremist group of self-identified LGBTQ+ people engaged in anti-trans organizing, in support of her legislation and argued that the safety concerns of LGBTQ residents were misplaced. 'I just want them to know that this is to protect them as well. And I think in the long run, once it's implemented into law, they will see that this also protects them and their culture and community,' Lien argued. Republican senator Wendy Schuler brought the state's 2022 bill limiting trans girls' access to certain sports team, and she introduced 'Fairness in Sports – Intercollegiate Athletics' in this year's legislative session. Schuler, who competed in five varsity athletics at the University of Wyoming said that she 'doesn't know what the answer is' for transgender athletes in Wyoming, but that her priority is 'making sure our biological girls were all taken care of in terms of their access to athletics.' 'I understand the trans athletes here, she said. 'I totally get where they're coming from, because I had to sit on the sidelines while I was playing baseball with my brothers.' Schuler said that she consulted with teenagers and some transgender Wyomingites in writing her bills, which lead to exemptions for non-contact sports. While standing firm behind sports bills, Schuler derided the bills focused on bathroom usage and the legal definitions as an ineffective use of legislative time, and indicative of national theatrics meeting Wyoming politics. 'In terms of the bathroom stuff, and you know what is a woman and some of these other bills that have come through the pipe this year, I just think we had lots more important things we should have been focusing on,' Schuler said. 'But that's what the social issues of the day seem to be.' In what she owned as a 'contradiction', Schuler voted yes on all three bills that came before her. Schuler said she 'thinks the world' of Murillo, and Murillo and Burlingame also spoke kindly of Schuler. For Murillo, having friendships with people she views as infringing on her rights is complicated, but is a sort of necessity when advocating for LGBTQ+ rights in deep-red states. 'It's a totally different kind of ball game,' Murillo said. 'Doing this work in a red state, you have to be willing to have those conversations. You have to be willing to set aside those things, find that common ground.' If current political trends continue, Burlingame and Murillo fear that there will be less legislators willing to work out compromises. Wyoming's 2024 summer primary saw complete Republican upheaval and a glut of mailers, often accusing politicians of a 'radical gender agenda'. Senator Case said that there's pressure on elected officials in Wyoming to toe the line, or else. 'Some of my colleagues who still have a longer career ahead of them, and also have aspirations, are in agony on every one of these votes. These are good people, friends of mine,' Case said. 'I'm not doing that. I'm gonna get pounded for this. It might cost an election. But honestly, I don't think it's right and I feel so much better inside.' Murillo said in light of rhetoric surrounding the flood of legislation, she no longer considers Wyoming a safe place to be transgender. 'I definitely used to feel safe here, but no, not any more. I feel like the air has just shifted here,' Murillo said.
