Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen signed a controversial bill into law this week banning transgender girls from participating in girls’ sports teams across the state — despite the fact that fewer than 10 trans students have taken part in school sports in the past decade. Because clearly, that was the priority.
The measure was pushed through the Legislature after narrowly breaking a filibuster by a single party-line vote. It originally aimed to restrict bathroom and locker room access too, but one moderate Republican refused to go that far — forcing lawmakers to settle for only the sports ban this time. Still, Sen. Kathleen Kauth, who sponsored the bill, has already promised to bring back the bathroom restrictions next year. “Men are men and women are women,” she declared, again rejecting the very existence of trans identities.
Kauth’s rhetoric wasn’t isolated. She was joined by conservative heavyweights and former college swimmer Riley Gaines — a now-regular face in the movement against trans inclusion in sports. Together, they gathered around Pillen as he put pen to paper, celebrating what they framed as a victory for “fairness.” What fairness means when only a handful of students were ever even involved is anyone’s guess.
Opponents, including the ACLU of Nebraska, slammed the move. Mindy Rush Chipman, the organization’s executive director, warned that the new law “slams the door shut” on transgender students’ ability to participate in their own school communities. “This ban will only create problems, not solve any,” she added.
From an LGBTQ lens, the damage is less about sports and more about the message. When laws target trans youth — particularly over non-issues like this — it signals something far deeper: that these kids are unwelcome. That they’re a threat. That their identities are up for debate. And let’s be honest, no one is pretending this is about actual competitive balance. It’s about politics. About controlling whose lives are deemed acceptable.
With over two dozen states pushing similar bans and a federal government now backing discriminatory sports policies under President Trump, the message couldn’t be clearer — the war on trans visibility isn’t slowing down. It’s intensifying.
So here we are: a state with fewer than 10 trans athletes in ten years, now wielding laws against them. If you’re trans in Nebraska, it’s not just about playing ball — it’s about whether you even get to stand on the field at all.