‘I Want the Bloody Hands Recorded'

Behind Machaela Cavanaugh's tear-and-rage-filled filibuster of a Nebraska anti-trans bill that she knew would probably pass anyway.

- By Lila Shapiro. Photographs by Rebecca Gratz

May 16, 7:59 PM: Machaela Cavanaugh (center) looks up at the balcony where protesters have gathered in an attempt to stop LB 574, the trans health-care ban introduced by Senator Kathleen Kauth (left, in red).

On an Icy Morning in February, Machaela Cavanaugh, a Nebraska state senator, woke up with strep throat at the Cornhusker Hotel. She took some cold medicine and drove to the Nebraska Capitol Building in Lincoln, where her colleagues, sitting at rows of black-walnut desks beneath a gold frieze depicting cattlemen and homesteaders arriving in the state, had gathered for the 33rd day of the 90-day legislative session. “I felt like shit and I got on the floor and I made a speech that I do not remember, except for that it circulated the internets,” she recalled. Among other things, she announced that she intended to “burn the session down to the ground.”