OMAHA, NE – Last week, Nebraska joined more than half the other states in passing a law outlawing males competing in female sports. Nebraska became the 27th state to pass such a law, and the 29th state overall with a law or state policy regulation protecting women in sports.

The bill, “Stand With Women Act” (LB 89), passed overwhelmingly in Nebraska’s unicameral legislature 33-16. After the vote, Governor Jim Pillen confirmed he would sign the bill into law. 

“This legislation achieves a key goal — protecting girls and women’s sports,” Gov. Pillen stated. “It’s just common sense that girls shouldn’t have to compete against biological boys…I look forward to signing it into law.”

The law declares that “males and females possess unique and immutable differences” even prior to birth and that those differences are “enduring.”

“On average, male athletes are bigger, faster, stronger, and more physically powerful than their female counterparts. This results in a significant sports performance gap between the sexes,” the law reads. “Because of the physical differences between males and females, having separate athletic teams based on the sex of the athlete reduces the chance of injury to female athletes, promotes equality between the sexes, provides opportunities for female athletes to compete against their female peers rather than against male athletes, and allows female athletes to compete on a fair playing field for scholarships and other athletic accomplishments.”

As such, the measure defines “boy” and “girl” as human males and females respectively, indicating that males and females are defined by their unique reproductive systems. Accordingly, the law directs all interscholastic sports teams in the state from K-12 public schools, private schools, and colleges and universities “whose students or teams compete against a public school in an interscholastic sport, or a private school that is a member of an athletic association” to be “expressly designated” based on biological sex.

LB 89 codifies the single-sex sports requirements that are already being implemented by the state’s athletic associations and by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) following executive orders from President Donald Trump for “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” and to administratively define sex as “male” and “female.”

For more information about state laws protecting against gender ideology, visit Liberty Counsel’s website here.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “This common sense law protects women and girls by returning Nebraska’s interscholastic sports to the biological reality that men and women are different. So many female athletes have been competitively, physically, and emotionally harmed by policies allowing males into their sports and private spaces. The country has had enough of these hurtful policies and it is time for all states to pass laws protecting women and girls.” 

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