The Arizona legislature passed a bill recognizing the existence of only two genders and defining sex-based terms.
The Senate passed HB 2062 on Tuesday along party lines.
The bill from State Rep. Lisa Fink established definitions for the two genders and all related gendered terms: “boy” defined as “a human male who has not yet reached adulthood”; “father” defined as “a male parent of a child or children as defined by law”; “female” defined as “an individual who has, naturally had, will have, or would have, but for a developmental anomaly or accident, the reproductive system that at some point produces ova”; “girl” defined as “a human female who has not yet reached adulthood”; “male” defined as “an individual who has, naturally had, will have, or would have, but for a developmental anomaly or accident, the reproductive system that at some point produces sperm for fertilization of female ova”; “man” defined as “an adult human of the male sex”; and “mother” defined as “a female parent of a child or children as defined by law.”
HB 2062 also defined “sex” to mean “a person’s biological sex, either male or female, at birth.”
Governor Katie Hobbs is unlikely to approve this bill. She vetoed similar legislation last year (SB 1628), writing in a brief explanation letter that she would not harm residents of the state.
“As I have said time and again, I will not sign legislation that attacks Arizonans,” wrote Hobbs.
Hobbs has declared that individuals become the gender they believe they are, as opposed to their biological sex.
On this International Women's Day I want to make it clear that trans women are women, they are welcome here, and any bill that harasses or threatens their safety will swiftly meet my veto stamp.
— Governor Katie Hobbs (@GovernorHobbs) March 8, 2023
The Independent Women’s Network (IWN) — a grassroots activist group heavily involved in preserving sports participation based on biological sex — launched a campaign to urge Hobbs to go back on her past stances on transgenderism and sign HB2062 into law. One of IWN’s most prominent ambassadors is Riley Barker (nee Gaines), the collegiate swimmer turned political activist after losing to Lia Thomas, a male swimmer who identifies as a female.
“Call upon Governor Hobbs to sign this common sense, pro-woman measure into law to prevent sex discrimination in Arizona,” stated IWN. “We cannot fight sex discrimination if we cannot define ‘sex.’”
Senate Democrats argued for the reality of transgenderism. State Sen. Analise Ortiz said that males who believe they are females should be viewed as such.
“This should terrify us because trans women and girls are already a vulnerable population and this would only make them more vulnerable,” said Ortiz. “The explicit goal is to erase trans people from public life, including causing them to lose their jobs. It is wrong. We just need to respect people for who they are.”
"I want our trans community to know that we are not going to stop defending you against these horrific bills like HB2062. You belong, you belong as you are, and trans people will not be erased"
— Arizona Senate Democrats (@AZSenateDems) April 3, 2025
The bill passed out of the House in February, where it also passed along party lines.
State Rep. Stephanie Simacek called the reality of gender “narrow and outdated.”
WATCH: Rep. Stephanie Simacek explains her NO vote on HB2062. The bill passed with EVERY Republican voting yes. It is now on its way to the Senate. ❌ pic.twitter.com/2Dn0zdpRGj
State Rep. Lorena Austin cited “her lived experience” as a “nonbinary” and “gender nonconforming” to argue against the bill. Austin claimed Christians had no right to determine what constituted gender in the law.
Rep. @LorenaAustin4Az urges Republican lawmakers who continually push anti-trans legislation like HB2062 to try and understand the impact these bills — all bound for vetos — have on a community “that just wants to exist.” Watch: pic.twitter.com/wg3KP6AmKr
Earlier this month, the Arizona Senate advanced legislation that would impose “civil liability on health care professionals or physicians relating to gender transition or detransition procedures provided to minors.”
The bill, SB 1586, which was introduced by Arizona Senate Majority Leader Janae Shamp, (R-LD-29) would bring about legal protections for children and teens who have been subjected to so-called ‘gender transition procedures’ and suffered serious consequences of the alleged ‘treatment’ later in life. It would also set grounds for medical malpractice lawsuits to follow.
SB 1586 was passed in the Senate on in early March along party lines. It was given its first and second reading in the House of Representatives on the 12th and 13th.
In a statement following the bill’s Senate passage, Sen. Shamp said, “We have heard many tragic stories about young boys and girls who have submitted to life-altering procedures to change their gender – only to experience severe repercussions later on when they mature.”
She continued, “While Arizona law is clear against these types of procedures, there is more we as lawmakers can do to deter physicians and providers from entertaining any of the illegal and immoral operations that are ravaging our young people. Republicans again have shown their willingness to do what is necessary to stop the harmful mutilation of our children’s bodies, and we will continue to fight on behalf of our precious sons and daughters until these inhumane and ungodly practices are abolished. If there is nothing wrong with these procedures, then this policy won’t apply.”
Shamp also highlighted the bill in a recent release with a vow to implement a “Make Arizona Healthy Again” agenda.
Sharing AZ Senate Republicans video of the bill’s passage, Shamp simply stated “Do no harm!,” citing the Hippocratic Oath taken by all doctors.
If enacted, the bill would set “the grounds for which a medical malpractice action may be brought forward,” adding that, “a health care professional or physician who provides or provided a minor with a gender transition procedure is strictly and personally liable for all costs associated with subsequent detransition procedures sought by the minor within 25 years after the commencement of a gender transition procedure.”
The bill would also allow victims and their families to bring a civil action lawsuit for, “a) declaratory or injunctive relief; b) compensatory damages, including pain and suffering, loss of reputation, loss of income and loss of consortium, including the loss of the expectation of sharing parenthood; c) punitive damages; d) attorney fees and costs; and e) any other appropriate relief.”
A bill requring schools to use students’ real names and biological pronouns is making its way through the Arizona legislature.
SB 1002, sponsored by Arizona Senator John Kavanagh (LD-3), would prohibit school districts, charter schools employees, or independent contractors from referring to any student by a pronoun differing from their biological sex or a name other than their legal name without parental consent. It also prevents a school district or charter school from requiring an employee or independent contractor to use a pronoun that differs from a person’s biological sex, if doing so is contrary to their convictions.
The bill has moved to the Arizona House of Representatives where it awaits approval by the caucuses and a final vote.
Explaining the bill in a video, Sen. Kavanagh said that his bill “has to do with school staff and teachers using a pronoun or a nickname for a student that is not aligned with that student’s biological sex. The bill says that no school personnel can call a student by such an inappropriate pronoun or nickname unless the parents consent. And in addition when the parents do consent, no school employee can be forced to call the person by the pronoun that does not align with their biological sex if it violates the employee’s religious or moral beliefs.”
He continued, “This is important because students that want to be called by a different name or pronoun than their biological sex, or so-called transgendered students, many of them have a condition called gender dysphoria, which causes a lot of anxiety, sometimes even suicidal thoughts. So, the parents may know about this and may have the child under psychiatric care and the child’s doctor may have told the parents do not entertain a different pronoun or name that’s different from the from the child’s real sex because it could harm the child. So, we certainly don’t want school personnel harming children and threatening their psychological well-being or driving them to suicide. So, we’re going to require parental permission because also it’s a matter of parents’ rights. Parents determine what’s good for their children, not a school staff member or a school teacher, however well-meaning they may be.”
As noted in the text of the bill, Arizona’s Parental Bill of Rights “reserves parental rights to a parent of a minor child without interference from the state, a political subdivision or other governmental entity or any other institution.” Among the rights enshrined in the laws A.R.S. §§ 1-601 and 1-602 are parental rights to direct their children’s “education, upbringing and moral or religious training,” and making healthcare decisions on their behalf.
Thanks to DOGE and four wunderkind coders in Treasury’s basement, Americans learned this week that their government sent millions to fund a “DEI musical” in Ireland, a “transgender comic book” in Peru, electric vehicles in Vietnam, and an Anthony Fauci exhibit at the NIH Museum.
Faster than Ludicrous+ mode on a Tesla, the Trump admin’s new code bros are sifting through the financial ledger of America’s spending. Just 20 days in office and the new administration has saved the American taxpayer billions of dollars — exactly what Trump promised on the campaign trail. And as the president’s third week unfolded, news worsened for Democrats and America’s permanent bureaucratic state.
It seems the permanent bureaucracy borrowed the U.S.S.R.’s media playbook, funneling millions to left-wing news organizations such as The New York Times, Politico and Reuters. Evidently it wasn’t enough that a Republican in the newsrooms of our state-run media outlets, PBS and NPR, is rarer than a cogent sentence from Kamala.
Democrats, meanwhile, have decided that this Deathstar boondoggle of government spending at its worst is the hill they want to die on. Conservatives watched with glee as Rep. Maxine Waters, Sen. Chuck Schumer, et al, led the Charge of the Lightweight Brigade to USAID’s former headquarters. Cue dopey chant: “wE Will wiN!” (2025 update—no, you didn’t).
Before all the spending porn (as the great Louisiana wag, Senator John Kennedy dubbed it), Democrats’ opinion polls were in the gutter, with a disapproval rating of 57%.
Do the Dems think rushing to the barricades to defend out-of-control spending will earn them the respect and admiration of the American public? Expect their approval ratings to continue to sink like the Hindentanic.
USAID is just the beginning.
Wait until DOGE bites into the Department of Defense, which has never passed an audit.
In 2019 while on reserve duty at the Pentagon, I was thrown into yet another meeting chockablock with PowerPoint slides, so beloved by our military. This particular meeting was to cover the results of a service-wide audit. To summarize about 187 slides and 2 hours: we failed.
All the top brass in the room somberly listened to the auditors describe $5 billion worth of missing aircraft engines, leases for buildings and land that did not exist, accounting systems closer in age to the abacus than a modern spreadsheet, and miles of missing debits and credits.
As the most junior officer in the room, I kept quiet but closely studied the faces of my superiors. They too, kept quiet, only murmuring “next slide” as disaster after financial disaster was flashed across the screens.
My inner fiscal hawk prayed that the service chief would flip the table over and channel Col. Nathan “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH” Jessep. But he remained impassive and the meeting dissolved with a whimper and no plans for reform.
That night leaving D.C., I happened to bump into a very senior republican senator at Reagan National Airport and thought it my civic duty to share the (unclassified) events of earlier in the day. I told the venerable appropriator that the audit had revealed billions in waste, fraud, and abuse, and even suggested he should make a request to see the failed audit for himself.
(In the hindsight afforded by three years working in the U.S. Senate, I now know how utterly naive this moment was).
He paused a moment, then said, “Well, you know how these things are. That’s Washington for you.”
I felt sick at the time, which is likely the same feeling many Americans are having this week as they see the grift laid bare in our nation’s capital.
But the good news is that Trump and his DOGE team have restored the hope that government might be right-sized and returned to solid financial footing.
On Friday, when he was asked about the job Elon Musk is doing, the President remarked, “I think we’re going to be very close to balancing budgets for the first time for many years.”
What a tantalizing prospect — a government that spends within its means may truly bring about the golden age of America promised in the president’s inaugural address.
Morgan Murphy is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, military thought leader, former press secretary to the Secretary of Defense, and national security advisor in the U.S. Senate.
One of Arizona’s most powerful lawmakers was in Washington, D.C., this week to attend a significant event at the White House.
On Wednesday, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen attended an event at the White House, where President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order to keep men out of women’s sports.
The executive order stated that, “In recent years, many educational institutions and athletic associations have allowed men to compete in women’s sports. This is demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports.”
President Trump’s order went on to mandate that, “It is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy. It shall also be the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.”
Petersen has been instrumental in leading legal efforts to defend Arizona’s Save Women’s Sports Act in 2022. After a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled to sustain an injunction against this law, Petersen and other Arizona officials appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States to request a hearing at the nation’s high court. The state is still awaiting the Supreme Court’s decision on whether to accept cert on the case.
I am on my way to the White House. Trump is about to make girls sports great again. No more stolen titles. Girls can again pursue their dreams. 70 percent of Americans agree on this issue. And Republicans are delivering on multiple fronts and from all three branches. We have…
In a statement previewing his appearance at the White House, Petersen said, “The war against women and girls is now taking a dramatic turn for the better, and sanity is being reinstated. This is exactly the common sense that Arizona and America voted for. Thanks to President Trump, American girls can once again pursue their dreams. No longer will athletic titles be stolen from them by males. An overwhelming 70% of Americans agree on this issue, which is a key reason why approval ratings of Democrat elected officials are at an all time low.”
🚨FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Senate President @votewarren Joins President @realDonaldTrump at White House for Executive Order Signing to Ban Men from Women's Sports
Petersen added, “I’m proud to join President Trump today in Washington D.C. for this historic moment. He is going to make girls’ sports great again, and I know that he will never stop fighting for us.”
According to a recent poll from Gallup, 69 percent of Americans believe that transgender athletes “should only be allowed to play on sports teams that match their birth gender.” This number was a seven percent increase in public perception over two years.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
