New Nebraska Law Classifies School Sports Teams by Sex

Gov. Jim Pillen says the goal is to make sure women and girls can fairly compete in sports.

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen speaks at the U.S. Capitol on June 7, 2023. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen has signed a new law requiring students to play on school sports teams based on their sex, a move he says is necessary to protect women and girls and their ability to fairly compete in sports.

The law makes sure that “we simply have a fair playing ground,” Pillen said on June 4 at a signing ceremony, where he was joined by lawmakers, advocates of women’s rights, and several female athletes from Nebraska and across the country.

Among them was Riley Gaines, a former collegiate swimmer from Tennessee who made national headlines in 2022 when she tied with transgender-identifying swimmer Lia Thomas for fifth in the women’s 200-meter NCAA championships. She has since become a leading voice in a national movement to preserve women’s sports for women.

“I’m here today to celebrate the tremendous progress in saving women’s sports and reclaiming our language,” Gaines said.

The new law applies to both K–12 and postsecondary public education institutions. It mandates that students compete on sports teams according to their sex, defined in the bill as whether a person “naturally has, had, will, or would have” male or female reproductive systems.

Under the law, girls will be allowed to participate on boys’ teams only if no equivalent girls’ team exists, such as in football. Private schools must adopt the same policy if they compete against public institutions.

“We are protecting all young women in sports,” Pillen said at a press conference that followed the ceremony. “It is not biologically apt for a young boy that says, ‘I’m a trans,’ and becomes a woman to compete in sports. It’s just not fair. It’s not right. It’s not common sense.”

The law builds on Pillen’s 2024 executive order establishing a “Women’s Bill of Rights,” which laid out a legal definition of male and female based on biological sex and detailed differences between the sexes.

It also aligns with an order issued by President Donald Trump in January to restrict federal funding from educational programs that allow men identifying as transgender to compete in women’s sports, a practice he said is “demeaning, unfair, and dangerous” to women and girls.

State Sen. Kathleen Kauth, a Republican who spearheaded the legislation, said she plans to introduce a bill in 2026 to designate sex-specific spaces such as bathrooms and locker rooms exclusively for individuals of the corresponding sex.

“We were only able to get the athletic portion on, but I will be back next year bringing you the [bill on] bathrooms and the locker rooms,“ she said. ”The work is not done.”

The law went into effect immediately.