A historic legislative session

When Minnesotans elected the most progressive legislative majority in our state’s history last year, Gender Justice vowed to take full advantage of the opportunity—advancing perhaps the most ambitious agenda for women and LGBTQ+ people in Minnesota history. Here are some highlights of what we accomplished together:

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 ALL pregnant and nursing employees.

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 such care, 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 from being offered under Medical Assistance coverage, and outlaws the misrepresentation of treatments involved in conversion therapy.

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.
• Ending Taxpayer Funding of Anti-Abortion Crisis Pregnancy Centers (passed as part of the Health and Human Services Omnibus Bill): Ended 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.