When Minnesotans voted in the most progressive legislative majority in our state’s history last year, we vowed to take full advantage of the opportunity — advancing perhaps the most ambitious agenda for women and LGBTQ+ people in our own history as an organization.

We have thoroughly fulfilled that vow.

We could not be more proud to share what we have accomplished with your steadfast support and in partnership with our champions in the legislature and coalition partners throughout the state during this 2023 legislative session:

Gender Equity

• Paid Family and Medical Leave: Institutes a statewide paid leave program that will keep Minnesotans healthy and advance economic security for families statewide.
• Modifications to the Women’s Economic Security Act: Strengthens gender equity in the workforce in Minnesota — including improving workplace protections for pregnant and nursing employees.
• Creation of Office for Missing and Murdered Black Women: Creates an office dedicated exclusively to combating rates of violence against Black women and girls.
• Menstrual Equity Bill: Ensures kids and teens have access to the essential menstrual products they need and reduces financial barriers by providing free menstrual products in public schools.

Trans and LGBQ+ Rights

• Trans Refuge Bill: Protects families seeking gender-affirming care in Minnesota from legal action and adverse child custody determinations by states that ban it and protects health care providers from out-of-state litigation or being forced to participate in anti-trans child custody proceedings.
• Conversion Therapy Ban: Bans the destructive practice of anti-LGBTQ+ conversion therapy on children and vulnerable adults, prohibits it being offered under Medical Assistance coverage, and outlaws the misrepresentation of treatments involved in conversion therapy.
• Take Pride Act: Removes language from the Minnesota Human Rights Act that previously stated Minnesota does not recognize the right of same sex marriage, among other provisions.

Reproductive Freedom

• The Protect Reproductive Options (PRO) Act: Enshrines in Minnesota law every person’s right to make and act on the full spectrum of decisions available to them regarding their pregnancies and their reproductive health care, without government interference.
• The Reproductive Freedom Defense Act: Protects everyone who seeks, provides, or helps someone get abortion care in Minnesota from legal action and criminal prosecution by anti-abortion activists and politicians from out of state.
• Anti-abortion law repeals (enacted as part of Health and Human Services and Judiciary Omnibus Bills): Eliminates from Minnesota law a lengthy list of significant barriers to abortion access that had remained on the books despite state court decisions ruling many of them unconstitutional — including the 24-hour waiting period to get abortion care, forced readings of anti-abortion propaganda by abortion care providers, unnecessary restrictions on the medical professionals who can perform abortion services, and many more.
• Medicaid Coverage for Abortion Care (passed as part of Health and Human Services Omnibus Bill): Eases financial barriers to abortion care by increasing the Medical Assistance reimbursement rate for providers offering family planning services and abortion care by 20 percent — the first such increase in a decade.
• Ending Taxpayer Funding of Anti-Abortion Crisis Pregnancy Centers (passed as part of the Health and Human Services Omnibus Bill): Zeroes out the budget for a state program that previously funneled $3 million in taxpayer money annually to so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” that use misinformation and coercive practices to actively discourage people from seeking abortion care.