Nebraska state Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh stands among her supporters just after a vote in which the Nebraska Legislature passed a bill to ban abortion at 12 weeks and ban gender-affirming care in minors, Friday, May 19, 2023 in Lincoln, Neb.. The crowd raucously protested the bill in the Capitol rotunda as lawmakers debated it. Cavanaugh has fought against the bans since the beginning of the session in January. (AP Photo/Margery Beck)

Machaela Cavanaugh, who filibustered continuously for months to block legislation prohibiting gender-affirming health care, says she will “put aside” her own legislative goals for the remainder of her term to keep advocating for transgender youth.

The term-limited Nebraska state senator and Omaha native has only three years left in office, but she has vowed to filibuster every single bill — even those she supports — until Nebraska Republicans back down on the anti-transgender legislation they successfully passed on May 19. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against it on Tuesday.

“It’s always been my priority to protect the most vulnerable people,” Cavanaugh told Heartland Signal. “I want trans people to know that they matter, that they are loved, that they’re worth fighting for, and that I am going to keep fighting for them.”

Cavanaugh filibustered for hundreds of hours across three months, preventing any bill from passing through the legislature for months, in an attempt to block Legislative Bill 574. Also called the “Let Them Grow Act,” the bill was intended to ban trans youth under age 19 from seeking “gender altering procedures,” including puberty-blocking drugs, hormone therapy, and surgery.

State Sen. Megan Hunt, a left-leaning registered nonpartisan from Omaha with a trans son, quickly joined the filibuster with Cavanaugh.

Though currently a hotly debated topic in dozens of states across the U.S., many people have no idea what gender-affirming healthcare actually is. Cavanaugh didn’t either until State Sen. Kathleen Kauth (R-Omaha) introduced the bill to the legislature last February. Although officially nonpartisan, the legislature is controlled by a majority caucus of registered Republicans.

When the bill was referred to the Health and Human Services Committee, which Cavanaugh sits on, she educated herself through conversations with medical providers and legal experts, realizing quickly that “there was no reason to have this kind of legislation other than to attack trans people.”

“It has been purposefully portrayed that surgical interventions are the goal of every trans person, which is categorically not true,” she said.

Gender-affirming care first starts with therapy. Then, if it’s appropriate for this individual’s needs, there are conversations about puberty blockers, then hormone therapy, then surgery. 

“While the genital surgeries might happen, the predominant surgeries that are happening is top surgery, and there is no debate whether it’s appropriate for a non-transgender person to have top surgery,” she said. “It’s only if you’re trans that they’re trying to take it away from you.”

But Cavanaugh acknowledges the huge learning curve around this issue, knowing from the beginning that she’d probably fail. To learn more about gender-affirming care, Cavanaugh suggests that Nebraskans reach out to local advocacy organizations such as OutNebraska and the Trevor Project, or talk to people in the community. 

In order to pass LB 574, Republicans scaled back their ban to just surgeries, adding language to call on the state’s chief medical officer to establish criteria under which other forms of gender-affirming care may be administered. They also merged the bill with legislation banning abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for rape, incest and medical emergencies.

The combined bill successfully passed with a 33-to-15 vote, Republican Gov. Jim Pillen signing it into law on May 22. These restrictions will be enforced starting on Oct. 1.

The lawsuit that the ACLU filed last Tuesday argues that this action violates Nebraska’s single-subject law that “no bill shall contain more than one subject, and the subject shall be clearly expressed in the title.”

“We will do everything in our power to restore what should be a fundamental right to bodily autonomy,” Ruth Richardson, CEO of Planned Parenthood North Central States, said in a press release. “Nebraskans deserve the right to make private health care decisions that are best for them, their families, and their futures—not politicians, who now have more control over our bodies than we do. And we will not stop until Nebraskans have that right today and for generations to come.”

Cavanaugh’s original family-oriented platform included protecting abortion rights in Nebraska, as well as promoting affordable health care, cutting property taxes for Omaha families, strengthening schools and implementing paid family leave. She was also the first senator to breastfeed on the Capitol floor, and even tried (but failed) to pass a bill supporting nursing stations in the Capitol.

Her work has prevented her from spending as much time as she’d like with her own family, including her two kids, and from taking care of her health. She endured the beginnings of strep throat during the viral speech she made announcing her filibuster in February, which she said she was too sick to even remember afterward.

“I was like, ‘I have a viral infection and I am viral!’” she said.

She never imagined how much support she’d receive since making that speech, or “how important it was to people outside Nebraska.” She’s been continuously shocked by how many people show up during legislative debates, flooding the rotunda in opposition to the bill.

“My hope is that the trans community is feeling they are living in the light and understand how much the community is wrapping their arms around them, even if the policymakers aren’t,” Cavanaugh said.