 And there's times I get very political, and as adults we feel that there's children here too. And it really breaks my heart that there are young people growing up in our world that doesn't protect them. Let me be your safe space tonight and just tell you, young people, tell you who you are. Don't let any law tell you who you're not, bitch. You are, oh, sorry, bitch, I'm just calling you. You are valid. You deserve to be- You just watched Lizzo tearfully denounce a Nebraska law recently signed by their Republican Governor Jim Pellin that bans gender from and care for trans youth, and it also bans abortions after the 12-week mark. Now this comes after Democratic lawmakers fought tooth and nail with a months-long filibuster to stop this legislation from going through. And if that sounds familiar to you, it's because we covered this before. And it all started with Senator Makayla Kavanaugh making this threat to her Republican colleagues when they proposed this legislation. But if this legislature collectively decides that legislating hate against children is our priority, then I am going to make it painful, painful for everyone. Because if you want to inflict pain upon our children, I am going to inflict pain upon this body. Now make no mistake about it, she kept her promise. Her and her Democratic colleagues did everything they possibly could to stop this. But unfortunately, Republicans won at the end of the day by combining a ban on gender from and care with a 12-week abortion ban. It was previously a six-week abortion ban, but now it's a 12-week ban. They attached that to the gender-affirming care ban, and that's exactly what they needed to muster up support. As CBS News explains, conservative lawmakers wrangled just enough votes to end a filibuster and pass a bill with both measures. Legislative rules state that a bill failing to defeat a filibuster must be tabled for a year, so opponents were surprised when conservatives announced a plan for a 12-week ban. Progressive lawmakers say it was an underhanded way to ramrod through a bill after the issue already failed. Conservatives say the ban is as a compromise. Now the bill was signed by the governor on Monday, and it has already taken effect. Now Democrats are accusing their GOP colleagues of violating the rules because they already did the filibuster, so the legislation should be tabled. But the Republican Party is alleging that since they attached new legislation to it, that somehow renews it, which seems like a stretch, but regardless, they got what they wanted. Now HuffPost adds, at Friday's final debate on the matter, opponents of the abortion ban accused its supporters of quickly tacking on the amendment without a proper hearing and violating rules about combining unrelated matters onto one bill. Quote, the reason the abortion part was added was because the transgender part could not pass without it, and clearly the abortion bill couldn't pass without the trans bill because we had to bring it back to life. It's a zombie bill, State Senator John Kavanaugh said during Friday's debate. State Senator Kathleen Cough, the bill's author, argued in a statement Monday that the amendment was germane because it's all about protecting children. Sure it is. It's just exhausting because these Republicans will lie, they will deceive, they will do anything, use anything as a justification or an excuse to pass their nefarious agenda. I mean if we really want to protect children, why not ban them from going to the Catholic Church? That's one way to protect them. But they don't care, like they don't care about children. Never let them tell you that they care about children again because this is going to hurt children and they know about that. But even if they know because their colleagues have stated again and again how this ban would affect children negatively, well one Republican, specifically the one who cast the tie-breaking vote for this legislation, her name is Christy Amanderiz, and she voted for this, she voted for this to advance, and she's claiming now that she literally doesn't even know what she supported As the Independent explains, a Nebraska Republican state senator who voted for a combined anti-trans and anti-abortion bill that passed by one vote in the legislature has admitted that she didn't pay attention to the issue. Quote, I don't watch the news or get the newspaper, she told The New York Magazine. Is there anything going on I should be aware of? The writer who was interviewing her told Ms. Amanderiz that other states have passed other similar bills restricting trans and women's reproductive rights and that an appeals court on the federal level in the Nebraska circuit had ruled that one of them was unconstitutional. Quote, so is this a big widespread thing? She asked the writer adding that regular Nebraska residents were unaware of the issue. Quote, I knocked on doors for a year and nobody brought this up. The senator said adding that she wished that the legislation had never been brought to the floor. I don't even know how to respond to that. Her vote could have stopped this from advancing and she's fanning ignorance. So you mean to tell me that for months her Democratic colleagues brought the entire legislative body to a screeching halt with their filibuster with passionate speeches that made national news and they begged and pleaded with their GOP colleagues to pay attention. Protesters showed up and literally disrupted the session where they were making this vote as a last dish effort to stop it from going through. And this Republican is actually going to play dumb. That's her defense here. Yeah, sorry, but I'm not going to buy it. If she really is that ignorance, then she should resign, but she's not ignorant. And what I think is probably happening is that after realizing that her vote allowed this legislation to advance while she's trying to shield herself from blowback. But I'm sorry, it's too late. It's not a defense, especially if you are in a position of power and you cause pain. Now, I want to play a clip from Senator Megan Hunt, where she's going to address the crowd of protesters that showed up to try to stop this. And she's going to respond to what they're saying. And this is especially important because Megan Hunt is somebody whose son is affected by this. She's a trans son. So we're going to watch her passionate speech where she's literally crying and begging Republicans to have a fucking heart. And then we're going to ask ourselves if this Republican who basically broke the tie could possibly be ignorant to every single fucking thing that's taking place around her. You know what they're chanting out there? I just got it. They're chanting one more vote to save our lives. They're chanting one more vote to save our lives. Whether you're talking about, you know, we all know what's going on with this bill and what you guys have put onto it. Whether we're talking about mothers with devastating fetal diagnoses who you think should be forced to carry a baby to term that has a brain outside of its head. What is wrong with you? Or you're talking about trans children who are four, five, six, four, 16, 17, 18 who can be all ages. But the way government is coming down in this body between a parent and a family and their child and a health care professional is unprecedented. It's unreal. And from Senator Kathleen Kouth who spoke against Dr. Lindsay Hughes in Douglas County for saying during COVID-19 that we should be wearing masks in public places and Dr. Hughes was unelected and unqualified, now she wants to have the Chief Medical Officer of Nebraska saying what should happen with trans kids. You know why they like this amendment? I know why all of you like this amendment. It's because it makes the bill worse. Thank you. Thank you. It makes the bill worse. Some veterinarian, some ear, nose, throat doctor, whoever who is the Chief Medical Officer at the moment for the state of Nebraska gets to determine what the regulations around gender affirming care is going to be for kids. And you think that's going to be something well-informed that makes sense? Just look at what happened in Florida. In Florida they did that and they passed some of the most stringent laws that we have. It's literally more restrictive than the original LB 574. So for those of you sleeping at night, patting yourselves on the back saying this amendment is really a great compromise. It's really harming kids more. It's really unconscionable. And to hear them out there saying one more vote to save our lives. It is not hyperbole to say that that's right. Just by introducing this bill, spikes to the suicide hotline in Nebraska, calls to the suicide hotline in Nebraska spiked. After the first round of general file debate, when we didn't stop the clock by the way, calls to the suicide hotline spiked, they spiked every time we talk about this. And we are going to lose somebody. We have already lost people in our community over the last year. We have lost very, very important people in Omaha and Lincoln and throughout Nebraska from the transit LGBTQ community because they know that this is not a place where they are welcomed. Imagine hearing that gut wrenching speech, hearing those chants and then having the audacity to feign ignorance afterwards. I just don't buy it. Republicans are truly heartless monsters and they are destroying this country state by state with their cruelty. But most Republicans in that legislative body, they were aware of the gravity of the situation. Not all of them chose to play dumb, but the ones who knew what they were doing, they actually tried to portray themselves as the victims of Democratic obstruction by claiming that senators like McKayla Kavanaugh and Megan Hunt were preventing them from spending time with their family because they had to be here since they were filibustering. Now, I thought that, again, Senator Megan Hunt had a really great speech and her response here was just perfect because, again, she has a trans son who disaffects and she explains how they're not the victims, they're the oppressors. Let's watch. Senator Linehan talking about missing her grandchild's graduation. I hate that for you. I'm so sorry. Seriously, I would hate to have that happen to me and I'm happy you're listening because I'm only asking you, we are only here doing this because of LB 574 period, I am not asking you to sit here through late nights to vote on these bills that we're dragging out. I'm asking you to love your family more than you hate mine. I'm asking you to love your family more than you hate mine. If your family wants you home to recover from surgery, maybe you should do that. If you want to go see your grandson graduate from preschool, you should do that. Instead, you are here to drag out this session because you won't come off this bill that hurts my son. You hate him more than you love your own family and that's why you're here. And so, you know, go to the graduation. Go recover from your surgery. We don't need you here. We need you to vote no or present not voting on 574 because, you know, there's nothing else in this body that's affecting your family that way. That was very well said, but it's just astonishing to me that Republicans actually had the nerve to complain about how disruptive and inconvenient this filibuster was because it was stopping them from spending time with their families. I mean, they're basically saying, hey, could you stop filibustering so we can go ahead and get on with our lives here? I mean, they're trying to pass a bill or they were trying to pass a bill. They tried to pass a bill that would ruin or possibly end lives and then they were complaining that it was inconvenient for them. I mean, they really have the fucking nerve. Calling them evil just doesn't do it justice. They are truly morally bankrupt fucking monsters. But the Democratic Party lawmakers who fought here, Makayla Kavanaugh, Megan Hun, John Frederick, among others, they really do deserve a lot of credit. They did everything they possibly could to stop this. But at the end of the day, cruelty overcame compassion. And if Democratic lawmakers in other states put up a fight as much as these Democrats did, that would really, I think, make a huge difference. Imagine if the National Democratic Party fought Republicans as much as these state senators did. But it's over. Republicans won. Nebraska joins 19 other states to ban life-saving, gender-affirming care for trans youth and nearly 500 anti-LGBTQ plus bills have been proposed in state legislatures across the country and the battle is going to continue. But never, ever let these Republicans tell you that they care about kids again because they know that these laws are going to increase depression and suicidality. They know this law is going to result in dead trans kids. They know what they're doing, but the cruelty is the point. So don't let them feign ignorance. Don't let them pretend as if they're the victims. They're the victimizer. And history is going to judge them very harshly for everything that they're doing in this era.