LINCOLN — Nebraska lawmakers will seek to define “male” and “female” in state law, broadening a past effort focused on sex-based restrictions for K-12 school bathrooms and sports teams to colleges and all areas of state government.Legislative Bill 89, the Stand With Women Act from State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha and 20 other lawmakers, builds upon LB 575 from 2023: the Sports and Spaces Act. Now Kauth is trying to codify a “Women’s Bill of Rights” that Gov. Jim Pillen enacted by executive order in August 2023.

“We have to be able to say that a woman is a woman and a man is a man, and there should be some places where each sex has privacy,” Kauth said at a morning news conference Friday with two University of Nebraska athletes and all but one of her legislative cosponsors.

Abbi Swatsworth, executive director of the statewide LGBTQ nonprofit OutNebraska, described the bill as an “escalation” of Kauth’s past efforts.“Nobody’s ‘equality before the law’ should ever be put in jeopardy, and that is exactly what this bill does by touching everything that government controls,” Swatsworth said, quoting the state motto.

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