Delaware
Anti-trans bill in Delaware expected to die in committee
GOP measure would ban trans girls from competing on women’s teams
A Republican-backed bill introduced in the Delaware Senate earlier this year that calls for banning female transgender students from competing on women’s sports teams in the state’s schools came under fire in a March 23 committee hearing.
The hearing by the state Senate’s Health and Social Services Committee was led by its chairperson, Delaware State Sen. Sarah McBride (D-Wilmington), the nation’s first openly transgender state senator. McBride, in referring to dozens of similar bills introduced in state legislatures across the country, said the Delaware bill was “part of a national strategy” aimed curtailing the rights of transgender people, including trans kids.
“The outcome of this strategy is to make life so difficult for trans kids, to make them feel so alone, that some never grow up to be adults,” she told the committee and the bill’s lead sponsor, Sen. Bryant Richardson (R-Seaford).
Political observers familiar with Delaware politics believe the six-member committee, which consists of four Democrats and two Republicans, with McBride as the chair, is certain to defeat the bill by letting it die in committee without voting to send it to the full Senate. No vote was taken on the bill during the March 23 hearing.
Neither McBride nor a spokesperson for her office could be reached for comment.
Even in the unlikely development that it was to be released by the committee, Delaware gay Democratic activist Mitch Crane, a former chair of the Sussex County, Del., Democratic Committee, said the Democratic-controlled state Senate and House of Representatives would defeat such a bill by a large margin.
Crane said he thought it was significant that three of the Delaware Senate’s seven Republican members did not sign on as co-sponsors of the bill. The 21-member state Senate consists of 14 Democrats and seven Republicans.
In the 41-member Delaware House of Representatives, just three of the 16 House Republicans signed on as co-sponsors of the bill. None of the 25 Democrats in the state House signed on as co-sponsors, nor did any Democrats in the state Senate.
The bill in question, Senate Bill 227, states that “a school district, charter school, member school, or higher education institution may not allow a student to compete for an athletic team or in a sport designated for the biological sex opposite to the student’s biological sex as correctly stated on one of the following…”
It goes on to list two criteria to determine a student’s biological sex – the student’s “official birth certificate” and, “If the student’s birth certificate is unobtainable, another government record.” The bill also states that a document confirming the student’s biological sex, such as a birth certificate, must have been “entered at or near the time of the student’s birth.”
The bill allows cisgender female students, who it says are girls who were born as girls, to compete on boys’ sports teams if there are no girls’ teams for a specific sport such as wrestling.
“The bill was introduced by the most right-wing homophobic Republicans in the legislature,” Crane told the Washington Blade. “The sponsors of this bill knew it could never pass,” he said. “They are just appealing to their base.”
The Delaware General Assembly website identifies the bill’s sponsors as Republican Sens. Bryant Richardson, Colin Bonini, Gerald Hocker, and Dave Lawson and House Republicans Timothy Dukes, Richard Collins, and Jesse Vanderwende.
Richardson, the state senator who introduced the bill, stated during the March 23 committee hearing that his intent was not to discriminate against anyone.
“You can be anything you want to be in this great country,” the online news site Delaware Live quoted him as saying. “The purpose of this bill is not to undermine that privilege,” the site quoted him as saying. “The purpose of the bill is to protect the gains in women’s sports that came about almost 50 years ago under Title IX.”
He was referring to the Title IX provision of the U.S. Education Amendment Act of 1972 that bans sex discrimination in education related programs, including school sports.
The online site reports that Richardson referred to transgender girls as “male-bodied,” and said they have an unfair advantage over biological girls because on average they are bigger and stronger.
“The inclusion of male-bodied athletes in women’s sports inevitably means that more females lost out,” he said, according to Delaware Live. “We have an obligation to defend everyone’s rights. What is wrong is when the rights of some put at risk the rights of others.”
McBride disputed Richardson’s assertions, saying that claims that trans female athletes in school sports have prevented cisgender women athletes from successfully competing in competitive sports have been shown to be wrong in the cities and states where trans athletes have participated in school sports.
“I want to say, as a senator, as the chair of this committee, and as a trans person, to the trans kids and their families watching this hearing – your government sees you and, for the first time ever, really understands you,” McBride said during the hearing. “You are loved and you are worthy,” she said. “Trans people are here to stay.”
Delaware
Delaware school district remains supportive after Trump attacks on trans students
Cape Henlopen has gender identity nondiscrimination policy
The Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware, one of five school districts in several states where the U.S. Department of Education earlier this month rescinded agreements protecting the rights of transgender students, says it will continue to provide a “safe and supportive learning environment” for all students.
In response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for the Cape Henlopen district sent the Washington Blade a short statement on its response to the federal Education Department’s action under orders from the Trump administration that ended what were called school district “resolution agreements” put in place under the administration of President Joe Biden.
Among other things, the federally initiated agreements required schools to train faculty on responding to a student’s preferred name and pronouns and to implement policies that allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity.
“The Cape Henlopen School District has received correspondence from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights regarding the resolution agreement entered in March 2024,” the Cape Henlopen School District’s statement says. “As always, we are committed to providing a safe and supportive learning environment where all students can succeed,” it says.
“We will continue to work collaboratively to ensure our practices and programs support the well-being, growth, and achievement of every student in our District,” the statement concludes.
Although it did not respond specifically to the Trump-initiated action ending federal protections for trans students, a statement on the Cape Henlopen School District’s website says the district has a policy of non-discrimination based on a wide range of categories, including race, religion, creed, gender, and “sexual orientation or gender identity.”
The Trump administration’s latest action does not take away nondiscrimination policies put in place by school districts on their own.
The Cape Henlopen district is in Sussex County, a short distance from Rehoboth Beach, a Delaware resort town with many LGBTQ residents and summer visitors.
The other school districts for which the U.S. education department ended the trans nondiscrimination agreements include the Delaware Valley School District in Pennsylvania, Sacramento City Unified School District in California, Fife School District in Washington State, and La Mesa Spring Valley School District also in California.
Kimberly Richey, the Department of Education’s Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, said in a statement that the decision to terminate the school agreements highlighted the Trump administration’s efforts to prevent trans students from participating in girls’ and women’s sports teams and accessing shared locker rooms.
“Today, the Trump administration is removing the unnecessary and unlawful burdens that prior administrations imposed on schools in its relentless pursuit of a radical transgender agenda,” she said in her statement.
Shiwali Patel, an official with the National Women’s Law Center, said in a statement that the action removing protections for trans students would negatively impact all students.
“There is absolutely no basis for what the Department of Education is doing, and it is unimaginably cruel,” she said. “Parents, teachers, and students need the Department to focus on addressing real harms on campuses instead of rolling back policies that keep all students safe.”
Delaware
Delaware’s first openly gay elected official dies at 66
John Brady remembered as dedicated public servant
John Brady, the first openly gay elected official in Delaware, passed away in his home on Aug. 10 at age 66 after battling a long illness.
Brady was a deputy attorney general and was elected to three Sussex County offices: register in chancery, recorder of deeds, and clerk of the peace.
While clerk of the peace, Brady performed the first legal same-sex marriages in the state starting in July 2013. He told a local radio station just last week that he performed more than 400 marriages in his four-year term.
“John married my husband and me on the beach in Rehoboth 11 years ago,” said Washington Blade editor Kevin Naff. “He took great time and care in crafting our nuptials. It was a beautiful moment we will never forget. John was a pioneer for the LGBTQ community in Delaware, a dedicated public servant, and a gentleman. He will be missed.”
The day before he passed away on Aug. 9, former Speaker of the House Pete Schwartzkopf and former Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long presented Brady with Delaware’s highest civilian honor for individuals who meet a high standard for community service, the Order of the First State.
Brady retired in 2024 after 32 years as a member of the Delaware Bar and 16 as a state employee. He was also active in the Eagle Scouts, working as a Scout leader and professional scouter. He received the Founder’s Award in 2023, one of the highest honors.
“Delaware mourns the passing of John Brady, a true public servant, trailblazer, and dear friend to many,” Gov. Matt Meyer wrote in a statement on Aug 11. “From his dedication to justice and service through the law to the barriers he broke as Delaware’s first openly gay elected official, John fought with compassion to improve our state and touched countless lives in the process. Lauren’s and my prayers are with John’s family and friends, as we all mourn his passing and celebrate his extraordinary life.”
Delaware
Del. att’y gen’l among plaintiffs suing Trump over access to care for trans youth
Coalition of states filed motion last week
A coalition of more than a dozen states, including Delaware, filed a lawsuit on Aug. 1 to block the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict access to medically necessary care for transgender youth.
Filed in federal court in Massachusetts, the lawsuit challenges Executive Order 14187 from January, in which President Donald Trump refers to gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgeries as “mutilation.” It declares that the policy of the United States will be to “not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”
The suit argues that the EO violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and the Tenth Amendment by asserting federal overreach into state-regulated medical and healthcare decisions.
“It becomes clearer every day that there simply is no bottom to this administration’s cruelty,” said Attorney General Kathy Jennings in a press release. “With his agenda failing and his popularity plummeting, the president is turning to time-tested tactics of demagogues: turning vulnerable people into scapegoats, obsessing over their private lives, and intruding on medical decisions. These stunts make kids into political props and do nothing to help Americans. They are despicable, dangerous, and illegal.”
Gov. Matt Meyer recently signed an executive order making Delaware a shield state for providers of gender-affirming care. It prohibits state agencies from cooperating with investigations, subpoenas, or legal actions by other states against individuals or providers involved in care that is legal in Delaware.
According to the press release, providers in some states have begun to reduce or eliminate services due to federal actions. Nemours Children’s Hospital in Delaware is no longer providing gender-affirming care to new patients.
Medical experts and nearly every major national medical association endorses and supports the availability of gender-affirming care for transgender young people.
“Empirical evidence has demonstrated that trans and nonbinary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression,” the American Medical Association said in 2021.
Plaintiffs include the attorneys general of California, Connecticut, D.C., Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin, and the governor of Pennsylvania.
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