Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway alongside other Wisconsinites at a city celebration for Transgender Day of Visibility. Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner.
Wisconsin Democrats and city of Madison leaders recognized transgender visibility day in Wisconsin Monday, introducing legislation that would provide protections for people and raising the transgender pride flag.
This year’s International Transgender Day of Visibility comes amid a political environment in which trans people have been targeted by new proposed federal and state restrictions. Wisconsin Republican lawmakers spent significant time in March on a slate of bills focused on transgender kids and would have limited their ability to play sports, access gender affirming medical care and change their names and pronouns in school. The bills are among more than 800 anti-trans bills that have been introduced nationwide this year.
Participants in the Madison celebrations said the point of the day was not to focus on the negative and harmful actions being taken, however, but to focus instead on the positive experiences of being transgender.
Sen. Melissa Ratcliff (D-Cottage Grove), co-chair of the Transgender Parent and Nonbinary Advocacy Caucus, said during a press conference that the purpose of the day is to “elevate the voices of our trans and non-binary communities, emphasize the joy of living life as your authentic self and to visualize the world in which all our trans and non-binary children, co-workers, neighbors, parents and elected officials throughout Wisconsin and the world are loved, accepted and safe.”
Democrats holding the press conference proposed a handful of bills. One would extend Wisconsin’s nondiscrimination laws to include transgender and nonbinary people by prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity or gender expression.
Another bill would create an exception to current law for those seeking a name change for gender identity reasons. Under the current state statute people seeking a name change petition must publish notice of their petition in a local newspaper, including in the area where the petition will be heard, once per week for three consecutive weeks before they may petition the court.
A third bill would declare March 31, 2025 as Transgender Day of Visibility in Wisconsin and recognizes the achievements of several transgender people and organizations who have made contributions to Wisconsin.
In addition to the bills, Gov. Tony Evers, who has committed to vetoing any anti-trans legislation that makes it to his desk, signed a proclamation declaring Monday Transgender Day of Visibility.
Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) said the bills are important because lawmakers need to send a positive message to young Wisconsinites who may be paying attention. He said that when he was young he remembers feeling discouraged as a gay teen when the state passed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
“Thirteen-year-olds across Wisconsin are listening to political actions and messages that are being sent out of the Capitol,” Phelps said, adding that children should know there are elected officials and allies and leaders who are fighting for transgender, non-binary and gender-expansive people of all ages across Wisconsin.
“That’s the message that we want people to take out of the Capitol and into their communities and to see [protections] passed in the state law as well,” Phelps said.
When asked about plans to discuss the legislation with Republicans and the potential for garnering support across the aisle to pass any of the bills, the lawmakers sounded doubtful. Republicans hold majorities in the Assembly and Senate and support from them would be necessary for any of the Democratic legislation to be taken up.
“I don’t think they will sign on to this legislation. I certainly wish that they would take a look at it and hear our voices here today and see the love and support of so many community members,” Sen. Melissa Ratcliff (D-Cottage Grove) said.
Clancy called it a “valid question” that Democrats get every time they hold a press conference.
“Will Republicans sign on to this? And every time the answer is somewhat the same…,” Clancy said. “Republicans, two weeks ago, sat on the floor of the Assembly just feet from here for hours. They said that trans people should not exist, should not have basic rights. They have had the opportunity to weigh in on this, and I would welcome any of them moving across the aisle, breaking ranks from their, frankly, hateful leadership and joining in on these things.”
The city of Madison also recognized Transgender Visibility Day by raising the transgender pride flag outside of the city municipal building.
Mayor Satya Rhodes Conway said the city was raising the flag to celebrate trans people, because the city respects individual rights and “rejects hate.”
“The safety and the livelihoods of trans people are being threatened, and the issue of the fact of trans people is being used to divide our country in a hateful and really disappointing way, but here in Madison, we refuse to go backwards, and we refuse to let hate divide.”
Asked about communicating the message of acceptance to those who disagree, Rhodes-Conway said that she thinks it’s important people recognize that diversity makes the Madison community stronger and invited people to “learn about the things that maybe make them nervous or scared and to be a part of the incredible diversity.”
Rhodes-Conway also urged people to educate themselves.
“Folks can educate themselves and each other and a lot of the fear and resistance comes from lack of knowing, and so I just encourage people — there’s a lot of resources,” Rhodes-Conway said. “Please don’t ask the trans people in your lives to educate you. There’s a lot of resources out there and our libraries, our fantastic resources, and people can educate themselves about the history.”
Dina Nina Martinez-Rutherford, the first out transgender member of the Madison Common Council, said that transgender people are all “part of an unbroken legacy of resilience” and “authenticity.”
Martinez-Rutherford said that she never expected to feel “so much love and community” when first elected in 2023 and never expected when she first started transitioning in 2007 to be in a position to advocate for people.
“We raise the transgender flag today for it to be a symbol that Madison is welcoming and that you belong here,” Martinez-Rutherford said. “Let it be a beacon of hope, a reminder that we will not be erased.”
A yard sign urging voters to vote 'Yes' on a referendum request for Ashwaubenon School District in 2024 when a record number of schools went to referendum. Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner.
As Wisconsin school districts seek permission this week from voters to spend more than $1.6 billion for operational and building costs, state lawmakers are looking for ways to address the issue of schools’ growing reliance on referendum requests.
Voters across the state are deciding this spring on a total of 94 referendum requests including some in February and many in the upcoming April 1 elections. According to the Wisconsin Policy Forum, it’s the most ever between January and April in a non-presidential or midterm election year and it’s the continuation of an ongoing trend.
Republicans have introduced three proposals for new limitations on the referendum process in reaction to Milwaukee Public Schools’ successful request last year, with lawmakers saying the proposals would increase fairness and transparency for voters and taxpayers. However, one Democratic lawmaker and other stakeholders said the proposals would limit local control and don’t address the structural financial issues that drive school districts to go to referendum.
Eliminating ‘recurring’ referendum requests
A bill coauthored by Rep. Cindi Duchow (R-Town of Delafield) and Sen. Chris Kapenga (R-Delafield) would eliminate referendum questions that allow permanent operational funding increases and would limit other referendum requests to cover no more than a four-year period.
Duchow said in an interview with the Wisconsin Examiner that she doesn’t think there is a problem with school districts going to referendum and called them the “perfect tool” to allow local residents to make funding decisions. But she doesn’t think funding increases sought through a referendum should be permanent — or, in legislative terminology, “recurring” year after year.
The referendum option was created for schools in 1993 as a part of legislation that put limits on schools’ ability to raise revenue by increasing property taxes.
Anne Chapman, research director for the Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials Association (WASBO), said in an interview that the idea behind the legislation was that property taxpayers would be protected and the state would take care of school districts financially in return. From 1993 to 2010, revenue caps — the limit on how much districts could raise without voters’ permission — were tied to inflation. The inflationary increases were eliminated in 2009 and state funding has not filled the gap to give schools an inflationary increase.
According to WASBO, general school district revenues have lagged the rate of inflation for a decade and a half. If funding had kept up with inflation, districts would be getting $3,380 more per pupil in 2025.
Wisconsin schools also only receive funding for about a third of their special education costs and many are drawing from their general funds to keep up with providing expensive federally and state mandated services to students with disabilities. Districts are also dealing with declining enrollment, which results in lower funding for a district as there are fewer students even if fixed costs such as maintaining facilities may not fall.
School officials and advocates have pointed out that many districts are relying heavily on referendum requests to meet costs (even to keep schools open), saying the trend is untenable. Mauston School District is one example as school leaders were considering dissolving the district after two failed referendum requests until voters finally approved a request in February.
Chapman noted that when a referendum fails it can result in a school deferring maintenance, increasing class sizes and cutting staff, AP programs, language, support staff for special education, nurses, librarians, athletics and “all the things that kids need to kind of stay engaged in school.”
Dale Knapp, director of Wisconsin-based research organization Forward Analytics, said in 2023 that he didn’t “think the lawmakers who created this law envisioned referenda being relied on this much.”
“Maybe the answer after 30 years of the limits is an in-depth review of the law to see how it can be improved to continue protecting taxpayers and ensure adequate funding of our schools,” Knapp said.
Duchow, however, said that the state is providing “plenty of money” to schools.
“If they want a new gym, that’s on them. I’m not here to build you a new gym. The people who live in that community should make that decision,” Duchow said. She also said there are some schools that probably need to consolidate and others that need to close.
While school districts do go to voters to fund building costs, many are also going to referendum for “operational” (and often recurring) costs and as a way to keep up with staff pay, afford educational offerings and pay utility bills.
Duchow said recurring referendum questions are unfair. She said lawmakers in the caucus have been discussing changing the policy for a while. A similar proposal was introduced in 2017.
“We are looking at declining enrollment around this state, and how do we know what we really need 10 years from now?” Duchow said. “The Milwaukee referendum never goes away, so 10 years from now, we have less students in Milwaukee and we need the same amount of money? We have more technology coming in, which means we probably need less teachers.”
Duchow said Milwaukee’s $252 million operating referendum, which was the second largest school operating request in state history, was the “catalyst” for her bill.
Republican lawmakers and other state leaders have been highly critical of the request, which the district said was needed to fund staff pay and educational programming and voters narrowly approved. The criticism grew louder after the district’s financial crisis that resulted in the resignation of the superintendent and audits launched by Gov. Tony Evers.
“Enough is enough. MPS is a disaster. We have the worst reading scores in the nation, and all they do is scream they need more money,” Duchow said. “Money is obviously not the answer.”
Even with declining enrollment, the Milwaukee Public School District is the largest district in the state with 65,000 students enrolled, according to the 2024-25 enrollment data from DPI. This is over 2.5 times as many students as the next largest district in Wisconsin, Madison Metropolitan School District.
MPS students are also more likely to face significant challenges. More than 20% of students in the district have a disability, more than 80% are economically disadvantaged and 17.5% are English language learners. Statewide about 40% of students are economically disadvantaged, 15.7% are students with disabilities and 6.92% are English language learners.
Chapman said students with higher needs often incur higher costs for districts.
Duchow said that putting a four-year limit on referendum requests for recurring funds gives communities the ability to react to changing circumstances and that school districts should justify to voters why they need the funds. She said she would be open to discussing a different limit when it comes to nonrecurring referendum requests.
“It’s also not fair that everybody could vote for that referendum and then decide, hey, this is really too expensive. I can’t afford these property taxes and then they move out, and I’m still there paying the referendum,” Duchow said.
Duchow said she hadn’t yet spoken with any school district leaders when she was interviewed by the Examiner in early March, but planned to reach out before a public hearing on the bill.
“I’m sure I can already tell you how the schools are going to feel. The schools are going to feel they want their recurring referendum, just like we want your boss to give you a 20% raise every year without you justifying why you should get it,” Duchow said. “That’s what the schools want, too. I don’t blame them. I would, too, but we can’t do that to our taxpayers.”
According to the Wisconsin Eye on Lobbying website, the Wisconsin Education Association Council has registered against the bill, while the Wisconsin REALTORS Association has registered in favor.
Lawmakers have added new restrictions to school referendum requests before. The 2017-19 state budget limited scheduling of a referendum requests to only two per year and only allowed them to be held on regularly scheduled election days.
“It used to be that referendums could be called by a school district at any time, but the Legislature said… we don’t want you to have the option to run so many referendums,” Chapman said.
Chapman noted in an interview that recurring referendum requests pass at lower rates than other types because it is harder to convince taxpayers. She said voters “know how to handle this” and lawmakers shouldn’t further reach in to restrict district’s options.
“Some districts and some communities want a recurring referendum,” Chapman said. “School districts have the option of asking for recurring and sometimes they do and voters sometimes approve them because they’re asking to fill structural budget holes that are never going to go away. They’re asking for basic operating dollars that they’re going to need in four years.”
A recent Marquette Law School poll found that Wisconsinites are becoming increasingly concerned with holding down property taxes since 2018 and less favorably inclined toward increasing funding for K-12 public schools.
Chapman noted that districts also often make nonrecurring referendum requests for recurring costs because they are an easier ask, though this places districts in another difficult position.
“As soon as you go to nonrecurring referendum in this environment with grossly inadequate state funding and state policies to support schools financially, you are now going to be in your own personal fiscal cliff,” Chapman said. “You’re going to have to go again, and probably for more, because your costs have gone up and funding does not keep up with inflation.”
Bills meant to provide ‘fairness,’ ‘transparency’
Lawmakers, concerned about the MPS referendum, requested a Legislative Fiscal Bureau memo last year that found some school districts in Wisconsin could see a decrease in state aid after the MPS referendum due to the way that equalization aid is calculated.
Equalization aid acts as a form of property tax relief, according to the Wisconsin School Business Officials Association. The amount of aid a district receives from the finite pot of money distributed by the state is determined by a formula that depends on a district’s property wealth, spending and enrollment.
Spending triggered by referendum requests is one factor in determining districts’ equalization aid, and Milwaukee — like other districts with low property wealth per pupil compared to the rest of the state — will receive more state aid per pupil than other districts with higher property wealth per pupil as a result of its increased spending from the referendum.
Chapman noted, however, that all 148 referendum requests for operating expenses in 2024 affect the share of equalization aid districts receive. She also emphasized that it’s not the only factor affecting the amount of aid districts get.
“Some districts have increasing enrollment, which means they’re going to pull more money away from Milwaukee.” Chapman said. “There’s all of these factors that affect every single district, and they intertwine with each other.”
Republicans viewed Milwaukee’s referendum as taking too much from other districts.
“Is it fair to the students, parents and taxpayers in Waukesha, Madison, Wautoma and others suffer without having the right to cast a vote?” the bill authors Rep. Scott Allen (R-Waukesha) and Sen. Julian Bradley (R-New Berlin) asked in a memo. “Local school referendums should not have a significant negative impact on other districts. Simple fairness demands this type of thinking.”
The lawmakers’ bill would exclude any district referendum request worth more than $50 million from being considered when determining equalization aid. The effect of the bill would be that districts that pass a large referendum would have their aid eligibility reduced, leaving local taxpayers to pay more of the cost. The bill would only apply to districts below a certain property wealth value.
Chapman said the bill would penalize districts for being larger and having lower property wealth and is an example of lawmakers trying to micromanage local entities.
A final bill introduced by Allen and Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara (R-Appleton) would require that tax impact information be added to ballots. Currently, referendum ballot questions are required to include the dollar amount of the increase in the levy limit.
Under the bill, referendum questions would also need to include the estimated interest rate and amount of the interest accruing on the bonds, any fees that will be incurred if the bonds are defeased and a “good faith estimate of the dollar amount difference in property taxes on a median-valued, single-family residence located in the local governmental unit that would result from passage of the referendum.”
Proposal criticisms
Freshman Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) said he wasn’t inclined to support a ban on recurring referendum requests given the inconsistency in state funding.
“We go through this sort of toxic [state] budget cycle every two years and districts have to levy, and they don’t even know what to plan for, so recurring referendums are obviously a response to that,” Phelps said.
Phelps said the question of fairness is relevant when talking about the referendum process, but the framing of the Republican proposals is misguided, given the state’s over $4 billion budget surplus.
“It is not fair to taxpayers that, depending on what school district you live in, you might have an astronomical property tax bill just to keep that district running. That’s not fair,” Phelps said. He said the state of Wisconsin is “underfunding public schools and not using the taxes people already paid.”
Derek Gottlieb, an associate professor at the University of Northern Colorado and senior research director for School Perceptions, an education research firm, said Republicans appear to be “operating on behalf of the taxpayers across the state who have voted no on school referendums and yet lost and so had their taxes raised anyway.”
“Suddenly, because so many [referendum requests] are passing, homeowners, taxpayers who don’t want to have their taxes raised are saying that this is unfair or we shouldn’t have to have our taxes raised just because everybody in our community wants to raise our taxes and Republicans are coming to the defense of those folks,” Gottlieb said.
According to the Wisconsin Policy Forum, while the number of requests continues to rise, approval rates have started to decline with the 66.2% approval rate in 2024 being the lowest in a midterm or presidential election year since 2012.
Gottlieb said some of the concerns raised by lawmakers are valid. For example, he said the current terms used to describe referendum questions are “obscure” and unclear.
“Why not just say a permanent referendum and a temporary referendum?” he asked. “You could do a lot to increase the transparency of what people are voting on if you made that little language change.”
Gottlieb also said that he does have “sympathy” for those who don’t think there should be permanent funding requests, but acknowledged that this would have consequences for districts because it removes predictability in planning.
However, he said he doesn’t agree that the potential for people to move out of a community or into a community in the future should be the deciding factor in funding decisions.
“That’s a basic feature of any community anywhere,” he said.
The argument that “it is not a legitimate exercise of public governmental power to make a decision for a community, given the fact that the community will change in the future…is ridiculous,” Gottlieb said. “If that were the case, it would make all public decisions fundamentally illegitimate.”
The increasing number of referendum requests, Gottlieb said, is a sign that revenue limits are set too low, at an amount that is unacceptable to community members. He noted that when operational referendum requests fail, the schools typically cut theater arts, advanced placement coursework, second language instruction, foreign language instruction and other programs that aren’t required by the state.
Chapman called the proposals a “BandAid” on the issues districts are facing that “isn’t even really fixing the problem.”
“[If] legislators really wanted to protect taxpayers and make sure schools have what they need, they would do something like keep revenue limits inflationary [and] significantly improve the funding for special education, which would help every single kid,” Chapman said.
The Wisconsin Assembly voted along party lines Tuesday to pass legislation penalizing counties with sheriff's departments that don't cooperate with ICE, the federal Immigration Customers and Enforcement agency. (Photo via ICE)
Legislation passed the Assembly Tuesday that would claw back state aid from counties where the sheriff doesn’t cooperate with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement service (ICE).
The legislation would require sheriffs to check the citizenship status of people being held in jail on felony charges and notify federal immigration enforcement officials if citizenship cannot be verified.
The state Senate, meanwhile, approved a bill that would block a judicial investigation of a police officer involved in the death of a person unless there’s new evidence or evidence that has not been previously addressed in court.
The immigration-related bill,AB 24, passed the Assembly on a straight party-line vote.
In addition to requiring citizenship checks, the bill would also require sheriffs to comply with detainers and administrative warrants received from the federal Department of Homeland Security for people in jail. Counties would be required to certify annually that they were following the law and would lose 15% of their shared revenue payments from the state if they were not.
Proponents described the measure as enhancing safety.
“We have the opportunity to emulate in many ways the best practices that are already happening across our country,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), the bill’s author, said at a news conference before the floor session. “We have seen since [President] Donald Trump took office that we have had a dramatic reduction in the number of illegal crossings that are happening at the southern border.”
Opponents said the bill would divert local law enforcement resources while driving up mistrust and fear among immigrants, regardless of their legal status.
Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) said the legislation was “big government” and interferes with local counties’ policy decisions. It also undermines the presumption of innocence for a person charged with a crime, potentially strains resources for local jails, and could lead to holding people “longer than is necessary,” he said.
But he added that those weren’t his top reasons for opposing the bill.
“I’m voting against this because it’s wrong, because this legislation rips people from our communities and families based on the mere accusation of a crime, because our Republicans colleagues’ eagerness to make themselves tools in Trump’s attacks on immigrants, refugees, visitors and those who oppose him is vile,” Clancy said.
On the floor, Vos replied that he agreed with Clancy about the presumption of innocence, and that he also agreed with other lawmakers who said the vast majority of immigrants are not guilty of any crime.
“But I would also say that there is a burden of proof on both sides,” Vos said. “It’s not entirely on just the side of the government to ensure that you follow the law.”
Claiming broad bipartisan support for the measure, Vos said Democratic opposition was “clearly out of step, even with your base.”
Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) responded that he hasn’t heard constituents ask for the legislation or anything like it.
“They are asking us explicitly to make life tangibly easier for working class Wisconsinites,” he said, “and they have not been asking me to engage in redundant acts of political theater to satisfy the whims of a rogue president engaging in a campaign of intimidation and mass deportation that includes constituents in western Wisconsin.”
In Wisconsin, if a district attorney chooses not to file criminal charges, a judge may hold a hearing — known as a John Doe investigation — on the matter and file a complaint based on the findings of that hearing.
The legislation,SB 25, “simply says, if that case goes before a DA, and then the DA justifies their actions and they are deemed to be innocent of any wrongdoing … that case is closed and it is in a file never to be seen again,” said the bill’s author, Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield), on the Senate floor.
Hutton said the legislation allows a judicial investigation to proceed, however, “if a new piece of evidence is presented that wasn’t known before, or an unused piece of evidence is found.”
But Sen. Dora Drake (D-Milwaukee) questioned carving out an exemption to the state’s John Doe law. “This bill does not apply to any other crime in Wisconsin,” she said.
Lawmakers, Drake added, should do more to address “the environment and the situations” that have led to officer-involved deaths.
Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee), said testimony at the bill’s public hearing discussed only two attempts to invoke the John Doe proceeding after a prosecutor declined to file charges in an officer-involved death — and one of them involved former Wauwatosa police officer Joseph Mensah, who killed three people in five years.
Allowing for a John Doe investigation in an officer-involved death “protects the public,” Johnson said. “What it does is put a second eye on those cases that deserve a second look.”
The Senate passed the bill 19-13. Two Democrats, Sens. Kristin Dassler-Alfheim (D-Appleton) and Sarah Keyeski (D-Lodi), voted in favor along with 17 Republicans. Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Oconto), who also opposed the bill in committee, joined the remaining Democrats who voted against the measure.
Reversing DPI testing standards: On a vote of 18-14 along party lines, the Senate concurred in an Assembly bill that would reverse a change that the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) made last year totesting standards.
AB 1 would revert the state’s testing standards to what they were in 2019 and link standards to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
Republicans voting for the bill said that the DPI change “lowered” standards — a claim DPI and Democrats rejected.
Direct primary care passes — but Democrats object: The Senate also voted 18-14 on party lines to passSB 4, legislation that would clear the way for health care providers who participate indirect primary care arrangements. Under direct primary care, doctors treat patients who subscribe to their services for a monthly fee as an alternative to health insurance for primary care.
An amendment Democrats offered would have added a list of enumerated civil rights protections for direct primary care patients. That list was in a direct primary care bill in the 2023-24 legislative session that passed the Assembly but stalled in the Senate when two organizations protested language protecting “gender identity.”
After the amendment was rejected, also on a party-line vote, Democrats voted against the final bill.
The Progress Pride Flag flies over the Wisconsin Capitol in June 2023. Wisconsin lawmakers held a hearing Thursday on two bills that would limit the rights of trans and non-binary people under the age of 18.. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)miner)
Two controversial bills that target transgender youth in schools, one dictating how school districts handle name and pronoun changes and the other banning transgender students from sports teams that align with their gender identity, received vast opposition at a public hearing Thursday.
The first bill — AB 103 — would require districts to implement policies stating that parents determine the names and pronouns used by school staff and requiring a parent’s written authorization for school employees to use something different. It includes one exception: if a nickname is a shortened version of a student’s legal first or middle name.
Rep. Barbara Dittrich (R-Oconomowoc) told the Assembly Education Committee that the bill is another way to unite parents and their children. Dittrich and coauthor Sen. Andre Jacque (R-New Franken) said the bill is modeled after a policy implemented at Arrowhead High School in 2022.
“Set aside whether or not you think a child should change their name or socially transition at school age, in our schools, we don’t allow our kids to take a Tylenol without permission from parents. We don’t allow them to go on a field trip without permission from parents. We don’t allow their pictures to be shared without permission from parents,” Dittrich said. “A major life choice — and transitioning and changing your name, it is a major life choice — is something parents should be involved in.”
Dittrich said there should be a legal document affirming that parents approve any changes.
Democrats expressed their opposition to the bill. Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison) said she was concerned about the bill being a “copy and paste” of one local school district’s policy and being applied statewide.
Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) asked how many transgender people Dittrich consulted in drafting the bill. She said she spoke with none.
“This is a parent’s rights bill. The parent is the legal guardian, therefore, I did not consult anyone who’s trans,” Dittrich said.
Sen. Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit), leader of the LGBTQ+ caucus, and Sen. Melissa Ratcliff (D-Cottage Grove), leader of the Transgender Parent and Non-Binary Advocacy caucus, both testified at the hearing. The bill is “cruel, discriminatory, and inhumane,” said Ratcliff, who is the parent of a transgender child.
“It incentivizes persistent mistreatment of not just transgender and non-binary children, but all children, and it creates unsafe learning environments. It’s a mess of a bill that would lead to absurd situations,” Ratcliff said. “This bill would be laughable if not for the fact that it creates real harm for our trans and non-binary students.”
Ratcliff also noted that the exceptions to the bills were narrow and may not make sense in practice.
“Perhaps your legal name is Richard, and you cannot be called Dick, or perhaps Charles can no longer be a Chuck? Legislatures should not be micromanaging policy choices local school school boards make,” Ratcliff said.
Spreitzer urged lawmakers to not take a vote on the bills or to vote them down in committee. He noted that the bills are unlikely to become law given that Gov. Tony Evers has vetoed similar bills and vowed to veto future legislation.
“This discussion is not aimed at making policy,” he said. “It is just giving a forum for bigotry, and it is going to hurt our youth, and if you don’t have that intent, then I appreciate that, but that is the effect it is going to have, so I would ask you to look at that, consider your own intent and act accordingly.”
Many in the room broke out into applause at Spreitzer’s comments, but committee chair Rep. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay) quickly shut that down.
“Please, I’ve said no cheering. We’re all going to hear things we agree with and disagree with. Just keep it to yourself,” Kitchens said, adding he didn’t want to have to have people removed from the room. He asked the crowd to quiet down several times throughout the day.
Dittrich asked if there are any amendments that could be made to make the bill better, but Spreitzer said the bill isn’t “fixable.” He said the intent of the bill appears to be making it harder for trans and nonbinary youth to change their names or pronouns and “if that is the intent of this bill, I don’t know that there is a way you can fix the language of it through an amendment.”
More than 70 people testified during the public hearing, which ran for more than ten hours, with witnesses given a five-minute time limit.
There were many more opponents than supporters at the hearing — leading Wisconsin Moms For Liberty activist Scarlett Johnson, testifying in favor of the bill, to ask for extra time after hitting the time limit. Johnson argued that she and supporters of the bill were “wildly outnumbered.”
Wisconsin Republicans have introduced bills targeting LGBTQ+ youth many times over the last several years. This year’s bills come as President Donald Trump has also targeted transgender people through a series of executive orders.
Several witnesses noted that this was not their first time testifying against such legislation; one said they were “really tired of coming.”
Luke Berg, an attorney with the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, said the organization has received calls about schools from “far too many Wisconsin parents in the last few years.” Asked about the exact number, Berg estimated that WILL has heard from six to 12 parents.
Lawmakers on the committee asked Berg about what would happen if a student is fearful of their home life. Berg said concerns about students living in an unsafe home environment could be dealt with by Child Protective Services.
“I certainly don’t disagree that there are bad parents, but we have a system and a process in place to deal with that,” Berg said.
WILL clients Tammy Fournier and her daughter, Autumn, said the bill would have been helpful for them and is needed to ensure “no other Wisconsin families would have to experience the government overstep we did.” They testified that at age 12, Autumn was questioning her gender identity and for a time was referred to at school as “he” and by a different name. She later changed her mind.
WILL brought a successful suit against the Kettle Moraine School District on their behalf that claimed the district violated parental rights by adopting a policy to allow, facilitate, and affirm a minor student’s request to transition to a different gender identity at school without parental consent and even over the parents’ objection. A judge blocked the district’s policy that had allowed students to choose their name and pronouns.
Many of the bill’s opponents, including parents of transgender youth, said transgender youth need support and should have the ability to make decisions for themselves. They said the bill could be detrimental to young people’s mental health.
“Parental involvement in support is incredibly important, but it’s not always present, and when it’s not, our schools can be a safe place for students who do not have a safe place at home,” Spreitzer said. “There are nuanced ways we can navigate this without this one-size-fits-all approach that is aimed at making it harder for trans and non-binary students, and even in some cases, their supportive parent.”
The Trevor Project’s 2024 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ+ Young People surveyed 358 Wisconsin youths, finding significant mental health struggles LGBTQ+ youth can face. About 39% of LGBTQ+ youth surveyed reported seriously considering suicide, including 44% of transgender and nonbinary youth, and 12% reported a suicide attempt, the survey found. In addition, 63% of LGBTQ+ surveyed reported experiencing symptoms of anxiety.
Kai Pyle, an assistant professor at UW-Madison told lawmakers about their experience exploring their identity growing up. Pyle stipulated they were speaking in a personal capacity, not for the university.
Pyle said that at the age of 15 they asked friends, classmates and teachers to use a name different from their legal name, and it was mostly accepted. A little over a year later, they came out as transgender, which was a “little bit of a more difficult change for many of my peers and teachers, but they were used to calling me Kai at that point, which in 2009 was a pretty unusual name in Wisconsin,” Pyle said.
Pyle questioned the effect the bill would have had on them had it been law then.
“Would I have been acceptable because it was potentially just a shortened version of my legal name, which also started with the letter K?… The situation that a student like me would find themselves in, should this bill become law, clearly shows how this policy is discriminatory specifically to transgender youth, and how nonsensical it is to try to legally limit staff from using students’ own preferred names and pronouns,” Pyle said. “Beyond simply being nonsensical and discriminatory, however, it is fundamentally an attack on the right of all humans, regardless of their age, to be treated with dignity in a way that respects their sense of self.”
The second bill — AB 100 — would require Wisconsin K-12 schools sports teams be designated based on “sex,” defined as the sex at birth, and would ban transgender girls from participating on teams and being in locker rooms consistent with their gender identity.
Tessa Price, a Madison resident, said the legislation won’t be successful in gaining the type of control that lawmakers appear to want with the bill.
“At the end of the day, trans people exist, they play sports, and they will continue playing sports with other members [with] community support that they find,” Price said. “So you will still find expressions within those sports that don’t match the control you’re trying to exert over it.”
An Eau Claire County farm. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
Seven western Wisconsin Republican lawmakers did not appear at an event hosted by the Wisconsin Farmers Union in Chippewa Falls Friday as farmers from the area said they were concerned about the effect that President Donald Trump’s first month in office is having on their livelihoods.
Madison-area U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Black Earth), state Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Eau Claire) and state Reps. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire) and Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) were in attendance.
U.S. Reps. Tom Tiffany and Derrick Van Orden, state Reps. Rob Summerfield (R-Bloomer), Treig Pronschinske (R-Mondovi) and Clint Moses (R-Menomonie) and state Sens. Jesse James (R-Thorp) and Rob Stafsholt (R-New Richmond) were all invited but did not attend or send a staff member.
The Wisconsin Farmers Union office in Chippewa Falls. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
“All four of us want you to know that there are people in elected office who want to fight for you,” Phelps said. “Because I think there’s a lot of fear that comes from the fact that we’re seeing a lot of noise and action from the people who aren’t and some of the people that didn’t show up to this. So I hope that you will also ask questions of them when you get a chance.”
Multiple times during the town hall, Pocan joked that Van Orden was “on vacation.”
Emerson, whose district was recently redrawn to include many of the rural areas east of Eau Claire, told the Wisconsin Examiner she had just been at an event held by the Chippewa County Economic Development Corporation where a Van Orden staff member did attend, so she didn’t understand why they couldn’t hear about how Trump’s policies are harming local farmers.
“I get that a member of Congress can’t be at every meeting all the time, all throughout their district,” Emerson said. With 19 counties in the 3rd District, “it’s a big area. But I hope that they’re hearing the stories of farmers and farm-adjacent businesses, even if they weren’t here. There’s something different to sit in this room and look out at all the farmers, and when one person’s talking, seeing the tears in everybody else’s eyes, and it wasn’t just the female farmers that were crying, the big tough guys, and I think that talks about how vulnerable they are right now, how scary it is for some of these folks.”
Carolyn Kaiser, a resident of the nearby town of Wheaton, said she’s never seen her congressional representative, Van Orden, out in the community. Despite Van Orden’s position on the House agriculture committee, Kaiser said her town needs help managing nitrates in the local water supply and financial support to rebuild crumbling rural roads that make it more difficult for farmers to transport their products.
“When people don’t come, it’s unfortunate,” Kaiser said.
Emmet Fisher, who runs a small dairy farm in Hager City, said during the town hall that he was struggling with the freeze that’s been put on federal spending, which affected grants he was set to receive through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Fisher told the Examiner his farm has participated in a USDA program to encourage better conservation practices on farms and that money has been frozen. He was also set to receive a rural energy assistance grant that would help him install solar panels on the farm — money that has also been held up.
The result, he said, is that he’s facing increased uncertainty in an already uncertain business.
U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan speaks at a Wisconsin Farmers Union event in Chippewa Falls on Feb. 21. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
“We get all our income from our farm, young family, young kids, a mortgage on the farm, and so, you know, things are kind of tight, and so we try to take advantage of anything that we can,” he said. “[The] uncertainty seems really unnecessary and unfortunate, and it’s very stressful. You know, basically, we have no idea what we should be planning for. The reality is just that in farming already, you can only plan for so much when the weather and ecology and biology matter so much, and now to have all of these other unknowns, it makes planning pretty much impossible.”
A number of crop farmers at the event said the looming threat of Trump imposing tariffs on Canadian imports is alarming because a large majority of potash — a nutrient mix used to fertilize crops — used in the United States comes from Canada. Les Danielson, a cash crop and dairy farmer in Cadott, said the tariffs are set to go into effect during planting season.
“How do you offer a price to a farmer? Is it gonna be $400 a ton, or is it gonna be $500 a ton?” he asked. “I’m not even thinking about the fall. I’m just thinking about the spring and the uncertainty. This isn’t cuts to the federal budget, this is just plain chaos and uncertainty that really benefits no one. And I know it’s kind of cool to think we’re just playing this big game of chicken. Everybody’s gonna blink. But when you’re a co-op, or when you’re a farmer trying to figure out how much you can buy, it’s not fine.”
A recent report by the University of Illinois found that a 25% tariff on Canadian imports — the amount proposed by Trump to go into effect in March — would increase fertilizer costs by $100 per ton for farmers.
Throughout the event, speakers said they were concerned that Trump’s efforts to deport workers who are in the United States without authorization could destroy the local farm labor force, that cuts to programs such as SNAP (commonly known as food stamps) could cause kids to go hungry and prevent farmers from finding markets to sell their products, that cuts to Medicaid could take coverage away from a population of farmers that is aging and relies on government health insurance and that because of all the disruption, an already simmering mental health crisis in Wisconsin’s agricultural community — in rural parts of the state that have seen clinics and hospitals close or consolidate — could come to a boil.
“Rural families, we tend to really need BadgerCare. We need Medicaid. We need those programs, too,” Pam Goodman, a public health nurse and daughter of a farmer, said. “So if you’re talking about the loss of your farming income, that you’re not going to have cash flow, you’re already experiencing significant concerns and issues, and we need the state resources. We need those federal resources. I’ve got families that from young to old, are experiencing significant health issues. We’re not going to be able to go to the hospital. We’re not going to go to the clinic. We already traveled really long distances. We’re talking about the health of all of us, and that is, for me, from my perspective as a nurse, one of my biggest concerns, because it’s all very interrelated.”
Near the end of the event, Phelps said it’s important for farmers in the area to continue sharing how they’re being hurt by Trump’s actions, because that’s how they build political pressure.
“Who benefits from all the chaos and confusion and cuts? Nobody, roughly, but not literally, nobody,” he said. “Because I just want to point out that dividing people and making people confused and uncertain and vulnerable is Donald Trump’s strategy to consolidate his political power.”
“And the people that can withstand the types of cuts that we’re seeing are the people so wealthy that they can withstand them. So they’re in Donald Trump’s orbit, basically,” Phelps said, adding that there are far more people who will be adversely affected by Trump’s policies than there are people who will benefit.
“And you know that we all do have differences with our neighbors, but we also have a lot of similarities with them, and being in that massive group of people that do not benefit from this kind of chaos and confusion is a pretty big similarity,” he continued. “And so hopefully these types of spaces where we’re sharing our stories and hearing from each other will help us build the kind of community that will result in the kind of political power that really does fight back against it.”
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