Kansas, on Feb. 23, became the first state to pass the Women’s Bill of Rights making it clear in legal language that sex is determined biologically at birth. The legislation defines women as those “whose biological reproductive system is developed to produce ova” and the male reproductive system as being “developed to fertilize the ova of a female.” In other words, no more transgender male-born athletes participating in female sports, and this has the left screaming “sexist.”
Women Winning Back Their Rights
State Senator Renee Ericksson (R) sponsored SB 180, saying it was a “very factual” and “objective” move. She told the Washington Times, “What this does is simply codify in the law the definition of sex.” It is amazing that such a thing needs to be defined, but Ericksson added, “It simply says that in existing statute or law, where there is a definition of sex, it means biological male and female as determined at birth. That’s very factual, it’s very objective.” She explained it doesn’t grant new rights or entitlements for women; it just codifies the definition.
Why do we need this? The Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) explained:
“The Women’s Bill of Rights protects single-sex spaces from overreach by unelected bureaucrats by ensuring that ‘sex’ in state and federal law is interpreted based on biology rather than gender identity. It also allows sex-separated spaces and opportunities such as prisons, domestic violence shelters, athletic competitions, and restrooms to remain in place by enshrining the application of ‘intermediate scrutiny’ to cases of sex discrimination, which is the current standard already applied to sex by the US Supreme Court.”
Men who identify as women and then enter domestic violence shelters pose a greater risk to the females in the facility, WoLF claims. This is the same in other gender-specific areas where biological males infiltrate female-only private spaces, such as bathrooms and locker rooms, and organizations, such as sports.
Lia Thomas (L) and Riley Gaines (R) (Photo by Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Riley Gaines, a nationally ranked female swimmer, spoke during the Kansas Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee hearing about her experience competing against Lia Thomas, a biological male. Thomas swam for three years on the University of Pennsylvania’s men’s team, ranking 462nd before identifying as a female to compete in women’s swimming – and subsequently taking a national title, “beating out the most impressive and accomplished female swimmers in the country, including Olympians and American record holders,” as Gaines described it.
Gains testified that she and her teammates were forced to share locker rooms with Thomas and that their complaints to the NCAA went ignored. She added, “SB180 is a declaration that words matter, that biology matters, and that science matters, and that when it comes to privacy and safety, separating the sexes is not only Constitutional, it’s common sense.”
Opponents of the bill claim that women don’t need this sexist legislation that discriminates against transgenders. Caroline Dean, a pastor with the Kansas-Oklahoma Conference of the United Church of Christ, is one such nay-sayer. She told the committee:
“The irony of this ‘Women’s Bill of Rights’ is that it doesn’t enumerate any actual rights, instead focusing on weaponizing the rhetoric of rights to erase protections for transgender and nonbinary people.”
Kansas Senate Democrats took to Twitter to air their fury, posting a statement condemning Republicans for basically choosing the rights of women over transgender. They tweeted:
“In case you were concerned that #ksleg politicians had come up with this themselves, have no fear: this is part of a national push to put biologically essentialist language in a statute so that legislators have basis to ban trans people from public spaces.”
And then there’s this nugget from Taryn Jones, a lobbyist for Equality Kansas: “The truth is, there can never be a level playing field. My cousin is six feet tall; she’s a cisgender female. Should she not be allowed to play on a women’s basketball team because she has an advantage?” Clearly the point – and science that dictates the physical benefits men have over women – is not understood, which is why female-only sporting events were created in the first place.
While Kansas is the first to pass this type of legislation – assuming no governor’s veto – it’s not the first state to mull such a proposal. Oklahoma, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas have been considering similar measures, and South Carolina is contemplating a joint resolution that would amend the state constitution so that it defines sex as biological sex at birth.
