LINCOLN, Neb (KMTV) — In 2023 Senator Kathleen Kauth’s Let Them Grow Act banned transgender minors from receiving gender affirming care.
In 2024 she tried unsuccessfully to pass her Sports and Spaces bill, which would have required K-12 schools to regulate bathrooms and sporting teams based on sex at birth.
Now in 2025 Kauth is again taking aim at transgender individuals and what restrooms and locker rooms they should use but this year she is looking at far more than just schools.
“This act will cover everything the state is in charge of. That means our prison systems, our department of economic development, that means our DHHS and all of our academics all the way up through post secondary,” said Kauth.
In a press conference loaded with religious overtones Kauth and a crowd of athletes, lawmakers and advocates announced LB 89, or the Stand With Women Act.
“So the question is, is the problem that big? If there is one incident it is too big of a problem,” said Kauth.
Like the previous bill, “Stand With Women” would use sex at birth to determine what intimate spaces transgender individuals are allowed in but the latest legislation goes even farther requiring all state agencies to set up rules and regulations defining sex based on biological sex.
That means regulating grants, scholarships and other support designating only for women.
“If we have designated something, say a women business owned grant. We shouldn’t have men be able to decide to be women and take that money,” said Kauth.
How many people this bill will affect remains unclear.
We reached out to the NSAA who has a policy regarding transgender athletes, but we were told they could not comment on whether any transgender kids were competing at all due to privacy issues.
If the debates around Let Them Grow Act and Sports and Spaces is any predictor, the battle over Stand With Women will be contentious.
Let Them Grow ground the work of the legislature to a halt with a session long filibuster, Sports and Spaces also faced a filibuster before it was defeated.
But that isn’t concerning for Kauth.
“All of these senators are going to be getting beat up pretty hard in the coming weeks but it is worth it,” said Kauth.
