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megan hunt
Chants of 'Shame!' After Nebraska GOP Bans Abortion, Trans Youth Healthcare
One lawmaker joined protesters in chanting, "We love trans people, we need trans people, trans people belong here!"
May 19, 2023
This is a developing story... Please check back for possible updates...
Transgender and nonbinary Nebraskans and their allies flooded the state Capitol on Friday as GOP lawmakers prepared to pass Legislative Bill 754, the so-called "Let Them Grow Act," which would ban gender-affirming healthcare for trans minors.
The unicameral Legislature—which is officially nonpartisan but has twice as many Republicans holding seats as Democrats—ultimately voted 33-15 to approve L.B. 754, which also bans abortion after 12 weeks.
Those gathered at the Capitol responded to the vote by chanting: "Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!"
\u201cLB574 - a bill restricting abortion and medical procedures for transgender youth - has passed. Here is the scene from the Capitol rotunda immediately following the vote.\u201d— Nebraska Public Media News (@Nebraska Public Media News) 1684531427
Republican Gov. Jim Pillen praised the Legislature's passage of the bill, which he plans to sign into law. Once he does so, the abortion ban will take effect immediately while the restrictions on gender-affirming care will begin October 1.
However, legal challenges are expected. Noting the legislative vote Friday, the ACLU tweeted that "elected officials shouldn't be spending their time and resources making it harder for people to access the healthcare they need. The fight isn't over."
Nebraska is one of more than two dozen states where Republicans have proposed bills prohibiting young people from getting healthcare that medical experts say reduces depression and suicidal ideation in teenagers struggling with gender dysphoria.
\u201cSenator Cavanaugh chanting in solidarity with the crowd.\n\nhttps://t.co/DtuvTPYMGi\u201d— Erin Reed (@Erin Reed) 1684518484
Lawmakers including state Sens. Machaela Cavanaugh (D-6) and Megan Hunt (I-8) have led a monthslong filibuster of L.B. 754, with Hunt telling her colleagues that blocking the bill's passage is a matter of protecting her own transgender son as well as young people across the state.
On Friday, Cavanaugh joined protesters gathered outside the Legislature floor in chanting, "We love trans people, we need trans people, trans people belong here!"
\u201cThis is the first page of the letter from more than 1k #Nebraska medical professionals @NebraskaMegan said is about to be read onto the floor by @senatormachaela.\u201d— Aaron Sanderford (@Aaron Sanderford) 1684513194
During the debate, opponents of the bill presented a letter signed by more than 1,000 medical providers from across Nebraska, who called the 12-week ban "ill-informed" and said the legislation, "in its monstrous, newly amended form, is a direct attack on the medical community of our state."
While the bill includes exceptions for rape, incest, and medical emergencies, as Common Dreams has reported, similar bans—which GOP state legislators are pushing through in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court reversing Roe v. Wade last year—have left patients on the brink of death before doctors were willing to intervene.
\u201cThey appear to be arresting some protestors.\n\nhttps://t.co/aItWSGtQ43\u201d— Erin Reed (@Erin Reed) 1684527974
The progressive political commentary site Seeing Red Nebraska reported that as many as four protesters were arrested for demonstrating at the Capitol as the lawmakers debated.
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'You Hate Him More Than You Love Your Own Family,' Nebraska Lawmaker With Trans Kid Says to GOP
"I am not asking you to sit here through late nights to vote on these bills that we're dragging out," said state Sen. Megan Hunt as a GOP colleague complained about a missed family event. "I'm asking you to love your family more than you hate mine."
May 19, 2023
Nebraska state Sen. Megan Hunt on Thursday made her latest appeal to her Republican colleagues to block the passage of a ban on gender-affirming healthcare, while expressing anger over lawmakers' complaints about how long the bill has taken to make its way through the Legislature.
Hunt, who represents the 8th District and announced earlier this month that she was leaving the Democratic Party to become nonpartisan, addressed her fellow lawmakers after a debate that stretched into the night on Tuesday regarding a proposal to attach an abortion ban to the so-called "Let Them Grow Act" (L.B. 574), the ban on transgender healthcare for youths.
The officially nonpartisan unicameral body—in which Republicans hold 32 seats and Democrats hold 16—ultimately voted in favor of attaching the bill, and Speaker John Arch confirmed to NBC News affiliate WOWT that lawmakers could vote on final passage as soon as Friday.
If passed, the legislation would be one of just a few bills to make it through the Legislature this session, compared to dozens that are generally passed by this point in the year. Hunt has joined state Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh (D-6) in a monthslong filibuster to block L.B. 574.
On Thursday, Sen. Lou Ann Linehan (R-39) complained on the Legislature floor that she had missed her grandchild's preschool graduation due to the prolonged debate over the bill.
Hunt, whose son is transgender, expressed empathy for Linehan over her missed family event, but pointed out that remaining in the Legislature to stop the passage of L.B. 574 is a matter of "taking care of my family."
\u201cNE State Sen. Lou Ann Linehan (R) complains filibusters of anti-trans bills made her miss her grandson's preschool graduation.\n\nSen. Megan Hunt (I): \u201cYou won't come off this bill that hurts my [trans] son. You hate him more than you love your own family. That's why you're here."\u201d— Heartland Signal (@Heartland Signal) 1684441711
"I am not asking you to sit here through late nights to vote on these bills that we're dragging out," said Hunt. "I'm asking you to love your family more than you hate mine."
"If you want to see your grandson graduate from preschool you should do that," she continued. "Instead you are here to drag out this session because you won't come off this bill that hurts my son. You hate him more than you love your own family. And that's why you're here... We don't need you here. We need to you vote 'no' or 'present, not voting' on 574 because there's nothing else in this body that's affecting your family."
Critic and journalist Emily St. James called Hunt's comments "an amazing distillation of this whole phenomenon" of the surge in anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, which has now been proposed in all but four states and Washington, D.C. this legislative session. At least 19 states have passed bans and restrictions on gender-affirming healthcare for minors.
"The need to have an out group to endlessly punish is driving people to miss moments in their own lives they'll never get back," said St. James.
The conservatives in the Nebraska Legislature appear to have the votes they need to pass the bill, according to WOWT. The measure would go into effect immediately after Republican Gov. Jim Pillen signs it due to an emergency clause.
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'This Is Harassment': Lawmaker With Trans Child Hits Back for Conflict-of-Interest Probe
"This is using the legal system that we have in our state to stop corruption, to increase transparency, to hold government accountable, and using it to harass a member of the Legislature," said state Sen. Megan Hunt.
Apr 27, 2023
Nebraska state Sen. Megan Hunt on Wednesday said she had received word that the state's Accountability and Disclosure Commission was opening a formal investigation into an alleged conflict of interest stemming from the fact that she has a transgender child and has fought against anti-LGBTQ+ legislation—a probe she said amounted to "harassment."
Hunt (D-8) addressed her colleagues shortly after receiving a hand-delivered packet from the commission in which the executive director, Frank Daley, explained that the panel was investigating claims in a complaint by a right-wing Omaha lawyer named David Begley.
Begley said in his complaint that Hunt was obligated to officially disclose that she has a transgender child before she voted against advancing Legislative Bill 574—the so-called "Let Them Grow Act"—which would bar medical professionals from providing gender-affirming healthcare including puberty blockers, hormonal therapies, and surgeries to people under the age of 19.
"This is using the legal system that we have in our state to stop corruption, to increase transparency, to hold government accountable, and using it to harass a member of the Legislature who you all know is trying to do the right thing," Hunt told her colleagues on Wednesday. "Is trying to parent her child in a way that keeps that child alive."
The attorney noted in his complaint that Hunt has said on the Legislature floor that she has tried four times to obtain care for her child, whose health coverage is through Medicaid. Nebraska's Medicaid coverage does not include so-called "sex change procedures," under regulations passed by the state's Health and Human Services Department in 1990.
Begley said that Hunt and her child would "have a slightly more than average chance of obtaining Medicaid coverage for the child's gender transition medical services via a lawsuit if L.B. 574 does not become law."
Hunt's child "could receive a financial benefit" if the bill fails to pass, he added in the complaint.
"It's not enough to pass these hurtful laws, they also have to silence and make examples of anyone who stands up to them," said Alejandra Caraballo of the Harvard Law Cyberlaw Clinic regarding anti-LGBTQ+ activists.
Hunt noted that Begley is well-known to many of her colleagues in the Legislature. The Omaha attorney attends city meetings on a regular basis to spread conspiracy theories "about the negative effects of solar power [and] how Covid was caused by 5G," according to one critic, and made racist remarks about Black Americans to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, then a presidential candidate, at a public Fourth of July event in 2019.
"This colleagues, is not serious, this is harassment," Hunt said of the complaint.
\u201cToday I was informed that because of a complaint filed by David Begley, I am under official investigation for a conflict of interest for standing for trans rights.\n\nMy colleagues stood up offering support, but I don't need their words. I need their vote.\n\nhttps://t.co/9wpRuzcTQV\u201d— Senator Megan Hunt (@Senator Megan Hunt) 1682540592
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers spoke out against the investigation that was opened in response to Begley's complaint.
"Every time we have a tax bill, I'm a taxpayer. So I may be involved [in] that every time," state Sen. Wendy DeBoer (D-10) told Nebraska Public Media. "We have a bill that involves families, well, I have a family. So I may be involved. Every time we have a bill on basically anything in here, I'm involved because I care about my state. I care about the people in my state, and I'm involved with them, just like Senator Hunt is."
The commission opened the probe on the same day that the Republican majority in the Montana House voted to bar state Rep. Zooey Zephyr (D-100) from entering the House floor for the remainder of the legislative session after she accused GOP members of having "blood on their hands" for supporting a ban on gender-affirming care.
Earlier this month, three Democratic lawmakers in Tennessee faced an expulsion vote by the GOP majority for supporting a protest by gun control advocates in the state Capitol building.
Hunt has been joined by state Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh (D-6) in filibustering against the Let Them Grow Act in recent weeks. Hunt said Wednesday she is planning to personally appeal to Republicans in the unicameral Legislature to reject the bill. Republicans hold 32 seats compared to Democrats' 17.
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