Wisconsin Gov. Evers Vetoes Five Bills Targeting Trans Rights
The Democratic governor rejected measures targeting transgender athletes, health care, and student protections.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers vetoed five anti-LGBTQ bills passed by the state’s Republican-led legislature.
The bills would have barred transgender athletes assigned male at birth from competing on female-designated sports teams in both K-12 schools and colleges; required school boards to adopt policies forcing teachers to out transgender students to their parents and obtain permission before allowing changes to names or pronouns; prohibited minors from accessing gender-affirming care; and allowed people who experience “regret” after such care to sue providers until age 33.
Evers, a Democrat, issued similar veto statements for each bill.
“My promise has always been that I will veto any bill that makes Wisconsin a less safe, less inclusive, and less welcoming place for LGBTQ people and kids,” he wrote. “It has been my honor to keep that promise over the course of two terms as governor, and I am proud to deliver on that promise again today.”
Evers said he vetoed the measures because he objected to “codifying discrimination into state statute and the Wisconsin State Legislature’s ongoing efforts to perpetuate hateful and discriminatory rhetoric and policies targeting LGBTQ Wisconsinites, including our transgender and gender nonconforming kids.”
He said each of the anti-LGBTQ bills “fails to comport with our Wisconsin values.”
Speaking at a private State Capitol ceremony on March 31 — Transgender Day of Visibility — Evers said he refused to approve the bills, which he said targeted transgender youth and restricted their visibility, according to Wisconsin Public Radio.
“I’d love to write ‘Hell no,'” Evers told the group. “The actual thing I have to say is, ‘Not approved.'”
While Republicans hold majorities in both the Wisconsin Senate and Assembly, they lack the two-thirds supermajority needed in either chamber to override a veto unless a significant number of Democrats defect.
LGBTQ advocates praised the governor for vetoing the measures.
“These bills were always about more than health care or the makeup of a sports team or the use of pronouns in a classroom — they were about excluding trans people from public life, and we cannot allow that, especially when our trans community is being attacked by so many levels of government,” Abigail Swetz, executive director of Fair Wisconsin, said in a statement.
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