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 Senate passes bill to codify same-sex marriage
Measure assigned to House Administration Committee
The bill that would enshrine same-sex marriage into Delaware’s Constitution passed the State Senate Tuesday afternoon.
Senate Substitute Two for Senate Bill 100 passed with a 16 to 5 vote, garnering the two-thirds majority necessary to pass. The bill has been assigned to the House Administration Committee.
SB 100 was introduced in April by Democratic Sen. Russ Huxtable of the sixth district of Delaware. It is the first leg of an amendment to the Delaware Constitution. The act would “establish the right to marry as a fundamental right and that Delaware and its political subdivisions shall recognize marriages and issue marriage licenses to couples regardless of gender.”
Senate Substitute One was adopted in lieu of the original bill on May 16. SB 100 originally focused exclusively on marriage equality relating to gender and the bill was tweaked to include protection for all classes that fall under Delaware’s Equal Rights Amendment, including race, color, national origin, and sex. Senate Substitute Two was then adopted in lieu of SB 100 on June 5 after being heard by the Senate Executive Committee on May 21.
SS 2 differs from SB 100 by clarifying that the right to marry applies to marriages that are legally valid under the laws of Delaware and that all state laws that are applicable to marriage, married spouses, or the children of married spouses apply equally to marriages that are legally valid. It also removed the need for gender-specific provisions by including gender in the first sentence and revised the language clarifying that the right to marry does not infringe on the right to freedom of religion under Article One of the Delaware Constitution.
“We’re not here to re-litigate the morality of same-sex marriage. That debate has been settled in the hearts and minds of most Americans, and certainly here in Delaware,” Sen. Huxtable said at Tuesday’s hearing. “We are here because the fundamental rights should never be left vulnerable to political whims or the ideological makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Other states such as California, Colorado, and Hawaii have introduced and passed similar bills to protect the right of all people of all genders to marry under state law.
“This bill sends a strong message that Delaware protects its people, that we will not wait for rights to be taken away before we act,” Sen. Huxtable said at the hearing. “Voting in favor of this amendment is not just the legal mechanism of marriage, it’s about affirming the equal humanity of every Delawarean.”
Delaware
Delaware hosts LGBTQ flag raising ceremony
Gov. Matt Meyer declares June 2025 as Pride month
Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer hosted a flag raising ceremony and presented a proclamation marking June 2025 as Pride month on Tuesday.
The public event took place at 11 a.m. at Legislative Hall in Dover.
“For many, many years of our state’s history, coming out here and doing what we’re doing today would have been just about unimaginable,” Meyer said at the event. “Today, this is a symbol of all of the progress that we have all made together.”
Lieutenant Gov. Kyle Evans Gay, Sens. Dan Cruce, Russ Huxtable, and Marie Pinkney, Reps. Eric Morrison, Deshanna Neal, and Claire Snyder-Hall, and LGBTQ+ Commission Chair Cora Castle and Vice Chair Vienna Cavazos were in attendance, among others.
Last week, Meyer announced the members of a new LGBTQ+ commission, which will work with the state government to improve services in areas such as employment, equality, education, mental health, social services, health, and housing.
As Pride month continues, Delaware is currently considering an amendment to codify same-sex marriage in its Constitution.
“Today is about making history and raising this flag,” said Lt. Gov. Gay at the event. “Today is about charting a new course forward with our new commission and today is about marking how far we’ve come.”
Delaware
Delaware Gov. Meyer announces LGBTQ commission
Nine members appointed to work to protect rights of residents
Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer announced the members of a new LGBTQ commission on the first day of Pride month.
The members include representatives from all three counties: Chair Cora Castle, Dwayne Bensing, Noah Duckett, and Mark Purpura of New Castle County; Vice Chair Vienna Cavazos, Leslie Ledogar, and John Kane of Sussex County; and Daniel Lopez of Kent County. They will serve three-year terms without monetary compensation.
The commission was created by an executive order from previous Gov. Bethany Hall-Long in January. It will work to “strengthen ties between the government and LGBTQ+ organizations, help remove barriers to societal participation for LGBTQ+ people and improve the delivery of services to the community in Delaware in areas such as employment, equality, education, mental health, social services, health, and housing.
“The commission will advise the governor, the governor’s Cabinet, the General Assembly, and other policymakers on the effects of policies and laws on the “unique challenges and needs of LGBTQ+ people.”
Commission Chair Cora Castle is president of OmniPotential Energy Partners, executive director of the Delaware Sustainable Chemistry Alliance, secretary of Sierra Club Delaware, and the vice chair of the New Castle County Board of Adjustment. She said it is “extremely humbling” to be included in this group of people.
“Having the opportunity to serve and be out here and help Gov. Meyer and help everybody across the state is again just so humbling,” Castle told the Washington Blade. “I love doing work on policy, I love having the opportunity to lead and this is something where I think I can make a difference and I think that my voice matters.”
Castle said it’s important that everyone understands that the commission is here to serve all of Delaware.
Vienna Cavazos is the commission’s vice-chair and youngest member at 19. They moved to Delaware from Texas in 2022 and have a background in youth advocacy and organizing.
“I am beyond grateful to have been asked to serve not only this governor but this state,” Cavazos said. “I appreciate the work that has been done in years prior and I’m excited to do the work that we need to do to bring us back to the 21st century.”
Leslie Ledogar, board president of CAMP Rehoboth, is also a member of the commission. She said it is a “huge honor” to be included.
“I believe that the commission will be a safe space in which we can discuss those issues and make sure that, in Delaware, we are not erased,” Ledogar said. “We do still have power at the state level, notwithstanding federal actions in the opposite and very very disturbing and dangerous direction.”
The commission will begin meeting soon. A major topic will be developing policies to protect health care for LGBTQ Delawareans.
“This commission will be critical as we work to protect the rights of all Delawareans, and I want to thank each of these individuals for their willingness to serve,” Gov. Meyer wrote in a Facebook post. “Together, we will ensure Delaware remains a welcoming state and a beacon of hope to all LGBTQ+ Americans.”
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