Transgender Advocates Lose as GOP States Define the Two Sexes

L.G.B.T. activists and their supporters rally in support of transgender people on the step
Drew Angerer/Getty Images

State Republican lawmakers are passing laws that define the two sexes around biological differences as transgender advocates use lawsuits and universities to suppress public distinctions between “male” and “female.”

In Kansas, the GOP-led legislature overrode a veto by Democrat Gov. Laura Kelly to enact the “women’s bill of rights,” which defines “woman” in state law based on reproductive biology.

The law defines a woman as someone “whose biological reproductive system is developed to produce ova,” while “male” is defined as someone whose reproductive system “is developed to fertilize the ova of a female.”

Florida’s legislature on Wednesday passed a similar bill designed to clarify biological distinctions between men and women. The Florida bill defines sex using characteristics like “chromosomes, naturally occurring sex hormones, and internal and external genitalia present at birth.”

The GOP lawmakers who drafted the legislation said they aimed to “maintain public safety, decency, decorum, and privacy.”

The bill now heads to the desk of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who is expected to sign it into law.

The move by Republican lawmakers in Kansas and Florida comes weeks after Montana’s GOP-controlled legislature approved SB 485, which provides definitions for “male” and “female” based on the production of sperm and eggs.

“In human beings, there are exactly two sexes, male and female, with two corresponding gametes,” the Montana bill reads. That bill awaits a signature from Gov. Greg Gianforte (R).

Zooey Zephyr

Zooey Zephyr attends a legislative training session at the state Capitol in Helena, MT, on Nov. 16, 2022. Zephyr is one of the first two transgender candidates elected to the Montana Legislature. (Thom Bridge/Independent Record via AP, File)

Montana Rep. Zooey Zephyr (D), who was censured by the state legislature last week, claimed the legislature was “targeting the trans community” with the bill.

“We saw they began with sports bans, but we know that the goal of the people targeting the trans community was never about sports — it was about eradicating trans people from public life,” Zephyr said.

In Tennessee, state Republicans sent a similar bill to Gov. Bill Lee’s (R) desk for signature. Tennessee’s bill defines sex as “a person’s immutable biological sex as determined by anatomy and genetics existing at the time of birth.”

Each state’s move follows a resolution congressional Republicans introduced last year to define words like” “woman,” “man,” “mother,” and “father” based on biological sex. That resolution was reintroduced in the 118th Congress in February but has not made any progress.

Jordan Dixon-Hamilton is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jdixonhamilton@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter.

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