The Republican-led Wisconsin General Assembly made a major move late last week when it passed sweeping legislation restricting transgender youth participation in sports.
It’s legislation that Wisconsin Democratic governor Tony Evers plans to veto.
“We’re going to veto every single one of [the bills],” Evers told supporters who gathered at the Capitol to protest the legislation, according to Spectrum News. “I know you’re here because you’re [ticked] off and you want to stop it, and you will stop it, and I’ll help you stop it.”
According to the report from Spectrum News, the organizations opposing the legislation include the American Civil Liberties Union, the Medical College of Wisconsin, the American Pediatrics Academy’s Wisconsin chapter and the Wisconsin School Social Workers Association.
The Wisconsin Catholic Conference and Wisconsin Family Action, “a conservative group that advocates for traditional marriage and family structure,” were the only two organizations in favor of the legislation.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos compared gender-affirming care to lobotomies.
“It’s interesting if you go back in history, the way to treat mental illness 50 to 100 years ago was a lobotomy,” he said, according to Spectrum News. “And at the time that was settled science. That was just the way it was supposed to be. We can go back to example after example after example where the human mind has been opened to say there are different ways of doing things and it shouldn’t necessarily be a one-size-fits-all solution because we have settled science.”
Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer, a leading queer legislation, called Vos’ remarks “disgusting and completely misguided” in an email to the Associated Press.
