MADISON, Wis. — Political pressure ramped up at the State Capitol, where lawmakers debated several transgender-related bills for several hours on Thursday.

The move came after President Donald Trump recently issued executive orders dealing with some of those same issues.

What You Need To Know

  • Lawmakers in the Wisconsin Assembly debated four Republican-backed transgender-related bills on Thursday

  • Two of the four bills discussed would ban biological male students from playing on girls’ sports teams, whether at the K-12 or collegiate levels

  • Another proposal would provide rules for changing a student’s name in school records and require parent permission for teachers to use a student’s preferred name and pronouns

  • A bill to ban gender transition care for minors was also debated

There were four transgender-related bills on the Assembly’s calendar Thursday. All of them were Republican-backed, and each brought about their own controversy during debate.

“Somebody with the name Robin, where people are not as certain what the sex of the person might be, isn’t worried about their pronouns, and I think it is exactly where we are as a society,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said.

Deep divisions among lawmakers were not hard to find on the floor.

“Denying kids the health care that they need in order to make it to adulthood is a new low for me,” Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer, D-Racine, explained. “Trans kids and folks across our state are not political pawns, and I sincerely hope the majority party will see the harm they are doing by bringing these bills forward today.”

Two of the four bills talked about Thursday would ban biological male students from playing on girls’ sports teams — whether at the K-12 or collegiate levels.

Another proposal would provide rules for changing a student’s name in school records and would prohibit teachers from calling a student by their chosen name and pronouns unless they have written permission from that student’s parents.

The last bill debated would ban gender transition care for minors.

“Let’s be real here, trans kids playing sports, K-12 sports is not an issue. What is an issue is students having lunch debt, districts having hundreds of thousands of dollars of student lunch debt,” State Rep. Francesca Hong, D-Madison, said during a floor speech. “What is an issue is special education funding is reimbursed at less than 30% right now for our public schools.”

According to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, 1.75% of youth ages 13 to 17 in Wisconsin identify as transgender.

Last month, the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) voted to ban transgender athletes from girls’ competitions. Republican lawmakers, however, insist their bill goes further by applying that policy to practices, locker rooms and showers.

“The Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has changed his opinion on this issue, and so maybe Governor Evers would do the same thing and support women and try to be on the right side of this issue,” State Rep. David Murphy, R-Greenville, stated.

Gov. Tony Evers has already vowed to veto any bill impacting LGBTQ rights. Last year, he made good on that promise when he refused to sign a similar bill restricting transgender athletes.

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