Feminist Leader Urges Democratic Lawmakers To Stop Gender Identity From Defining Law In Arizona

Feminist Leader Urges Democratic Lawmakers To Stop Gender Identity From Defining Law In Arizona

By Staff Reporter |

The U.S. leader of a top global feminist organization, Women’s Declaration International (WDI), urged Arizona’s Democratic lawmakers to support a bill protecting women’s rights by ending gender identity codifications.

Senate Bill 1628, the Women’s Bill of Rights by Senator Sine Kerr, was passed in the House last week and will head to the governor’s desk. SB 1628 would codify new definitions for sex-based terms used in statutes, administrative rules, regulations, and public policies. It’s unlikely the bill will be codified: Governor Katie Hobbs has openly expressed her disapproval for similar bills she deems against LGBTQ+ ideology.

“The purpose of this act is to bring clarity, certainty, and uniformity to the laws of this state regarding sexual discrimination, equality of the sexes and benefits or services that are specifically provided to males and men and females and women,” read the bill.

WDI USA President Kara Dansky, a Democrat, wrote in an Arizona Daily Independent op-ed that the popularized replacement of the concept of sex with gender identity results in the discrimination and oppression of women.

“[The victories of women’s rights] are being thrown out, including by Democratic women leaders, because of the nonsensical, psuedoscientific concept of ‘gender identity’ — the idea that somehow sex isn’t real, that a person can be the opposite sex, or that there is some mysterious third sex class (there isn’t),” said Dansky. “There is nothing progressive about pretending sex isn’t real.” 

Dansky’s organization most recently filed a brief in the ongoing Washington court case determining whether a female-only nude spa may exclude men. 

Significantly, SB 1628 would declare in no uncertain terms that the term “sex” indicated the existence of only two sexes: male and female, biological truths established at birth which are “objective and fixed.” The defined term “sex” further explicitly excludes concepts like “gender identity” or similar terms, which the bill noted imparted subjective senses of self and antonymous with the term “sex.”

The legislation further clarified that differences in sex development wouldn’t establish a third sex, such as those cases in which an individual with a congenital and medically verifiable disorder or difference in sex development. In those cases, the bill specifically directs compliance with accommodations according to federal and state law. 

Other definitions given for sex-based terms included: 

  • “Male,” meaning an individual who has, 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; 
  • “Boy,” meaning a human male who has not yet reached adulthood; 
  • “Man,” meaning an adult human of the male sex;
  • “Father,” meaning a male parent of a child or children; 
  • “Female,” meaning an individual who has, had, will have or would have but for developmental anomaly or accident, the reproductive system that at some point produces an ova; 
  • “Girl,” meaning a human female who has not yet reached adulthood; 
  • “Mother,” meaning a female parent of a child or children; 
  • “Equal,” meaning the recognition of the equality of sexes but not sameness or identicality; 

With those definitions, Senate Bill 1628 would effectively root out gender identity protections by replacing the term “gender” with “sex” in all laws, rules, publications, orders, actions, programs, policies, and signage. The bill also directed the sex-based segregation of environments like bathrooms, locker rooms, living facilities, athletics, domestic violence shelters, and sexual assault crises centers. 

Further, public schools as well as those agencies that collect vital statistics related to sex would identify all individuals as either male or female.

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Riley Gaines Urges Congress To Pass Rep. Lesko’s ‘What Is A Woman’ Law

Riley Gaines Urges Congress To Pass Rep. Lesko’s ‘What Is A Woman’ Law

By Corinne Murdock |

On Wednesday, Riley Gaines urged Congress to pass Rep. Debbie Lesko’s (R-AZ-08) bill defining a woman.

Gaines is the former University of Kentucky swimmer forced to compete against a biological male who identifies as a transgender woman: Lia, formerly Will, Thomas. Gaines and other swimmers were also made to share private spaces with Thomas, such as locker rooms. 

Gaines, who joined Lesko in a press conference on Wednesday, asserted defining the term “woman” was necessary to ensure equal protections under the law. 

“Elected bureaucrats and judges and officials and administrators have altered the legal meaning of these sex-based terms to interpret it as they want, and to reflect identity rather than biology, and to require that men and women be treated not just equal but the same,” said Gaines. “The public knows what a woman is, and it’s time that our laws did, too.”

Lesko’s bill defines sex as the biological sex, either male or female, at birth. It also defines women and girls in reference to human females, and man and boy in reference to human males. Likewise, mother is defined as a “parent of the female sex,” and father is defined as a “parent of the male sex.” 

“[T]here are important reasons to distinguish between the sexes with respect to athletics, prisons, domestic violence shelters, restrooms, and other areas, particularly where biology, safety, and privacy are implicated,” states the resolution. 

Gaines lamented that modern political discourse has come to reckon anyone as “brave” for speaking the truth of biological reality out loud.

“In my mind, I can’t fathom how it is brave to say that men and women are different. I can’t fathom that requires courage. When I think of courage, I think of people on the front lines,” said Gaines.

Lesko noted that in one of her local school districts, two of the board members have fought to prevent boys from gaining access to girls’ bathrooms. However, the board members of the unnamed district were in the minority. Lesko noted that there have been violent assaults and rapes of girls and women in bathrooms by males pretending to be female. 

“The left has declared a war on women,” said Lesko. “It is now more important than ever to affirm the biological differences between men and women to protect women’s hard-fought rights and ensure women have spaces reserved for them in society.”

Gaines also stressed that women’s feelings, privacy, safety, and self-esteem were sacrificed to spare the feelings of men suffering from gender dysphoria.

“What mattered to the left was protecting the feelings of a male at the expense of our own,” stated Gaines. “It’s 2023, we have the right to vote as women, we can own property. But we have to plead and beg for privacy in our locker rooms so we’re not violated. And when you do plead and beg, you’re called a ‘bigot,’ you’re called ‘transphobic’ for wanting safety.”

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05) has also cosponsored the bill.

The 25 other cosponsors of the bill, titled the Women’s Bill of Rights, are Reps. Diana Harshbarger (R-TN-01), Mary Miller (R-IL-15), Kevin Hern (R-OK-01), Claudia Tenney (R-NY-24), Robert Aderholt (R-AL-04), Andrew Clyde (R-GA-09), Randy Weber (R-TX-14), Michael Guest (R-MS-03), George Santos (R-NY-03), Andrew Ogles (R-TN-05), Virginia Foxx (R-NC-05), Ralph Norman (R-SC-05), Burgess Owens (R-UT-04), Ronny Jackson (R-TX-13), Harriet Hageman (R-WY), Jeff Duncan (R-SC-03), Jake Ellzey (R-TX-06), Jim Banks (R-IN-03), Buddy Carter (R-GA-01), Greg Steube (R-FL-17), Ben Cline (R-VA-06), Doug LaMalfa (R-CA-01), Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL-13), Michael Burgess (R-TX-26), and Brian Babin (R-TX-36). The bill hasn’t gone further than its introduction in February. 

Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.