Scaled-back bill defining ‘male’ and ‘female’ for sports participation in Nebraska schools advances

By Brian Beach , Reporter Nebraska Public Media

May 14, 2025, 8:30 p.m. ·

Riepe and Kauth on Stand with Women Votes — Sen. Kathleen Kauth (right) introduces the Stand with Women Act during debate Wednesday afternoon. Sen. Merv Riepe (left) amended the bill to take out the parts dealing with restrooms. (Photo by Brian Beach/Nebraska Public Media News)

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Sen. Kathleen Kauth’s Stand with Women Act, LB89, made it through the second round of debate in the Nebraska Legislature Wednesday evening, but not before an amendment stripped it of a key provision.

Sen. Merv Riepe was one of 33 senators to vote for the bill on the first round of debate, but he said he would only advance it further if changes were made.

Those changes included removing a requirement for students at K-12 schools and universities to use bathrooms and locker rooms corresponding to their biological sex.

“I would not support this bill if it continued down the path of micromanaging bathroom access or policing locker rooms,” Riepe said Wednesday. “I didn't run for office to become part of the Nebraska state potty patrol.”

Riepe said decisions regarding restroom and locker room policies are best handled at the local level.

“Local school districts are already handling issues with bathrooms, locker rooms on a case-by-case basis, working with students, families and within the constraints of their facilities. They don't need a one-size-fits-all for mandating from Lincoln,” he said. “These are deeply personal and often sensitive situations, and they deserve better than to be turned into a political litmus test.”

Riepe introduced an amendment that kept the same definitions of male and female from the first round of debate and uses those definitions to determine which sports teams individuals can participate in but removes language relating to locker rooms and restrooms.

In the legislation, female is defined as ‘an individual who naturally has, had, will have, or would have, but for a congenital anomaly or intentional or unintentional disruption, the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports, and utilizes eggs for fertilization.’ Male is defined similarly, replacing the ‘eggs’ with ‘sperm.’

Riepe said his amendment would still indirectly address issues in locker rooms,

“When boys are not participating in [women’s] sports, boys are not going to be in girls’ locker rooms,” he said. “They're not there. It's not going to happen.”

Kauth said she worked with Riepe on the amendment and voted for its adoption as a compromise. Without Riepe’s vote on the second round of debate, the legislation was unlikely to have the 33 votes needed to overcome a filibuster attempt from the Unicameral’s progressives.

“I do wish we were able to keep the bathrooms and locker rooms in the bill,” Kauth said. “However, I respect his decision and we've made that modification. And I think a lot of times on this floor, we find out that sometimes making incremental steps is the best way to go.”

Riepe’s amendment was adopted Wednesday afternoon, setting the stage for debate on the legislation itself.

Sen. Jared Storm echoed the prevailing focus from the bill’s supporters during debate – fairness in women’s sports.

“I can imagine nothing more frustrating as a female athlete than working and training for years to become the best you can be, only to lose, not because they train less or have bad technique, but because their bodies work differently, something that is entirely out of their control,” Storm said. “God created men and women equal in dignity, but different.”

And Sen. Tony Sorrentino brought up his experience as a women’s cross country coach at Creighton University, where he said his athletes don’t believe it is fair to compete against biological males.

“It is not a level playing field,” he said. “I want those who do not support LB89 to stand in front of my young ladies and tell them, too bad. Too bad all your efforts are for naught. Too bad you will lose your athletic scholarship to a stronger, faster male.”

But Sen. George Dungan said the state legislature doesn’t have a governmental interest in making sure that somebody gets a certain place in a sporting event.

“Women’s sports are thriving in the state of Nebraska and LB89 does nothing to protect the entirety of women's sports,” he said. “What it does is it seeks to tell people in our community that they are different, that they are worse, and that they are scary, when we know for a fact, if you take even 10 seconds to meet with these kids, to meet with their families, that they are none of those things.”

And Sen. Megan Hunt said the demand for bills like the Stand with Women Act comes from politicians, not students.

“Most young people don't carry the kind of hate in them that you do,” she said, referencing the bill’s supporters. “Most kids want fairness, inclusion. They want the freedom to play with their friends without being political. It's adults in this room and in legislatures around the country who are forcing division in spaces where it never existed before.”

After the allotted two hours of debate, a vote to advance the bill to the final round was taken along party lines. All 33 Republicans in the officially nonpartisan legislature voted in favor of LB89, but none of the Democrat-aligned senators joined them.