Gov. Jim Pillen says the goal is to make sure women and girls can fairly compete in sports.
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen has signed a new law requiring students to play on school sports teams based on their sex, a move he says is necessary to protect women and girls and their ability to fairly compete in sports.
The law makes sure that โwe simply have a fair playing ground,โ said Pillen on Wednesday at a signing ceremony, where he was joined by lawmakers, advocates of womenโs rights, and several female athletes from Nebraska and across the country.
Among them was Riley Gaines, a former collegiate swimmer from Tennessee who made national headlines in 2022 when she tied with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas for fifth in the womenโs 200-meter NCAA championships. She has since become a leading voice in a national movement to preserve womenโs sports for women.
โIโm here today to celebrate the tremendous progress in saving womenโs sports and reclaiming our language,โ Gaines said.
The new law applies to both Kโ12 and postsecondary public education institutions. It mandates that students compete on sports teams according to their sex, defined in the bill as whether a person โnaturally has, had, will, or would haveโ male or female reproductive systems.
Under the law, girls will be allowed to participate on boysโ teams only if no equivalent girlsโ team exists, such as in football. Private schools must adopt the same policy if they compete against public institutions.
โWe are protecting all young women in sports,โ Pillen said at a press conference that followed the ceremony. โIt is not biologically apt for a young boy that says, โIโm a trans,โ and becomes a woman to compete in sports. Itโs just not fair. Itโs not right. Itโs not common sense.โ
The law builds on Pillenโs executive order last year establishing a โWomenโs Bill of Rights,โ which laid out a legal definition of male and female based on biological sex and detailed differences between the sexes.
Byย Bill Pan