Republicans introduce bill to define ‘male’ and ‘female’ based on biological differences (US)

[IwantToRetire]

Several Republican lawmakers introduced legislation to clarify that the terms “male,” “female,” and “sex,” among others, refer to the biological distinctions between men and women when those words are used in laws.

The Defining Male and Female Act of 2024, introduced by Sen. Roger Marshall from Kansas, aims to prevent government officials and courts from reinterpreting those terms through the lens of gender ideology by identifying men and women based on self-identification instead of biological distinctions.

Marshall said in a statement that he “didn’t think we would need legislation to tell us that there are only two sexes, male and female, but here we are.”

According to a news release, the legislation would restore the legal right to reserve girls’ and women’s sports and scholarships for biological girls and women. The news release also states that the bill would restore the sex separation of restrooms, locker rooms, dorm rooms, prisons, and shelters for victims of sexual assault.

“As a physician who has delivered over 5,000 babies, I can confidently say that politicizing children’s gender to use them as pawns in their radical woke agenda is not only wrong, it is extremely dangerous,” Marshall said. “We must codify the legal definition of sex to be based on science rather than feelings. With our legislation, we can fight back against the Biden-Harris administration’s assault on our children.”
Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, said in a statement that “men and women have biological differences that must be recognized.” He added that “women and girls deserve to feel safe and respected in all spaces, public and private.”

The legislation is designed to unwind policies that were enacted during the administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Under the current administration, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reinterpreted the Affordable Care Act’s prohibition on “sex” discrimination to include any discrimination on the basis of so-called “gender identity.” The rule was blocked by a judge but would have forced health care providers and insurers to cover transgender drugs and surgeries for both adults and minors.

The administration also revised Title IX regulations to redefine sex discrimination to include any discrimination based on gender identity. This could have forced publicly funded schools and colleges to allow biological men in women’s locker rooms, dormitories, and athletic competitions. However, its enforcement is limited after multiple courts blocked implementation.

Article continues at https://ewtn.co.uk/article-republicans-introduce-bill-to-define-male-and-female-based-on-biological-differences/

I suspect this will be treated with suspicion by some because it seems to have the backing of churches.

And that it was introduced by a Republican - press release Defining Male and Female Act of 2024,

I suspect this will be treated with suspicion by some because it seems to have the backing of churches.

I think that as usual this will be hurled about by TRAs as an obfuscating tactic, without any analytical reasoning, both in the US and here in the UK.

Points that I would genuinely wish to see debated include:

That the US is, in terms of religious practices and policy, very different from the UK; and, within the US and UK, there are significant regional differences.

Different denominations and churches have different attitudes toward homosexuality and gender identity. There are certain churches and church leaders who frankly seem more kindly disposed toward 'trans congregants' than gay ones. I know of a few churches that are alleged to have been 'transing away the gay'.

It's not only churches than will support the taming of gender ideology. Mosques and a majority of synagogues will support this too. Not every rabbi in the States is a trendy rabbi like Sharon Kleinbaum of New York.

The interplay of the Abrahamic religions and gender ideology is extremely complex, in practice more bricolage than monolithic. I don't think that TRAs understand that insulting people who happen to have been brought up in a faith, or who have adopted one later in life, and comparing them to Nazis and murderers, is a futile and self-defeating tactic.

Finally, many voters who did not vote for Harris/Walz on November 5th did vote to keep/reinstate abortion rights where an abortion poll was available.

Don’t agree with the Republicans on most things but this is just common sense.

As a fellow-pedant, does 'Disabled Toilet' really reeeally annoy you? I mean, what use is a disabled toilet? I would prefer to use 'Adapted Toilet' but that gets get blank stares, so I just say 'disabled toilet' ..

The important this is that they exist and that ABLE-BODIED TRANSGENDER PEOPLE DO NOT USE THEM AS A GENDER-NEUTRAL TOILET😡

Bizarrely, Darlington Memorial Hospital, the site of the Darlington nurses having to get changed with a man, has toilets marked male and female.

@MarieDeGournay I say "wheelchair accessible toilet" or probably more often just "accessible toilet"
(apologies for pedant's corner derail!)

Back to OP, this looks remarkably straightforward to me. Am I missing some weasel wording? What do people make of it who have been worried that Republicans will use trans issues to roll back women's and gay people's rights?

@IwantToRetire
Thank you for this!
I can't believe how quickly this house of cards is toppling.

TRAs are pretending to think that it's not possible for sentient beings to say, 'I agree with you on this bill because it protects women's and children's rights; while at the time I vehemently disagree with your stance on abortion'.

The US results show that a twin-track positioning of anti-woo and pro-choice, and voting on the two issues where options are available, is actually an increasingly popular stance. Unfortunately the TRA-aligned media are still pretending that you have to be pro-gender ideology to be pro-choice.

It's fake misinformation to dismantle. We just have to keep saying it.

Anti-woo and pro-choice. For women.

I am hoping that the question over abortion rights will be placed with individual states so that people can organise and campaign in their own state.

YES!
'accessible toilet' is the right term AFAIC.

And pedants unite!

This bit is good, too:

(8) Legal equality of the two sexes—male and 21 female—does not imply that the sexes are identical to each other or are the same in every respect.

Well thank Goddess.

Huge relief. I hope it passes easily and sanity and science can return.

Last definition on the bill - woman means an adult human female.

Good Lord, the Republicans are good for something.

I hope the US (and the UK & Europe) will soon benefit from facing up to the twin traps of both biological determinism and biological denial.

Quite so - the epitome of a false dilemma!

I don't see 60 votes for this in the Senate, so chances are it's a publicity stunt. Unless of course they're planning to sneak it into a spending bill somehow.

He “didn’t think we would need legislation to tell us that there are only two sexes, male and female, but here we are.”

Love it, and glad someone is saying it out loud!

That's interesting. Maybe it's a dare to see what the Democrats do. Entrench themselves as the party of gender ideology or accept it's time for a massive rethink. I suspect it's too early for them to have completely grasped what a disaster gender ideology is for them.

AS far as I am aware this is not a Trump initiative.

This has been proposed by a Republican, who like others (not just republicans) have got fed up, like we have here, on finding what was a perfectly clear law has been hijacked by those trying to change the meaning of the word.

Dont forget Biden's directive has been held up by legal challenges, but if this passes (as it would here) it would make so many situations that were always straight forward, straight forward again.

The best hope it that thanks to the recent election, both houses now have Republican majorities. They are the ones who will decide.

Also

If there is another thread, sorry. But really can only repeat what i say quite often, if you dont title a thread with a clear indication of what it is about it is really easy to skip over, when not only if as an individual you are busy, but if the board if busy.

Also - nice clear headlines get picked up by search engines, so not saying go all out tabloid, but they too like something bold and easy to grasp.

Has the strange expierence yesterday of searching "terf" and google proudly presented me with most recent results - the thread on FWR! (which wasn't what I was looking for ... )

53 Republicans and 7 Democrats/independents needed. I think it’s possible. It’s like voting to confirm the Earth is a sphere.

@GrumpyPanda Are you suggesting Marshall is being impolitic because he should have secured the votes first?
Isn't it fairly standard to introduce bills that one knows will fail in order to generate political interest and move the conversation forward, until a point is reached where there are enough votes?
Is that what you mean by a "publicity stunt"? I think of that as a perjorative term.

This bill all strikes me as so tediously straightforward but I'm willing to be shown I'm wrong if someone can explain how this is actually part of forwarding a misogynistic agenda, like Project2025 or similar.
I understand the discomfort with this coming from the Republican side of U.S. politics. I feel that discomfort! But I don't think there's anything to see here beyond a very sensible bill.

It’s like voting to confirm the Earth is a sphere.

Well obviously.

Mad as it might seem in the 21st Century but the trans agenda has been so sucessful, it has become necessary to do that.

And to imply its not worth doing seems extraordinary, particulary when 99.9% of threads on FWR are about how the fact that the word sex has been subverted by gender, and the negative impact on women.

Or have you not noticed that?!

One of the reasons I started the thread is that this bill being introduced is very similar to the UK campaign to get the EA re-worded to ensure that the word sex means biological.

"I think President Trump can do it with an executive order, I just want to emphasize that this is utilizing children. It's irreversible, whether it's the surgeries or the hormones. Most of the hormonal changes are irreversible as well. They lead to osteoporosis. They lead to infertility for girls taking testosterone, it causes structural changes in their face. And once they start having the hair that never reverses as well."

Marshall said it's "really important that we protect the children who don't have the emotional maturity to make this type of decision yet."
When asked if he's garnered much support for this legislation, Marshall said "it's an uphill battle right now" to find co-sponsors.

"We just dropped it today," he added, "and this will not be able to be done under reconciliation so it will take 60 votes, that means we'll need to find some Democrats out there" to back the bill in order to avoid a filibuster.

https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/roger-marshall-newsmax-stop-act/2024/12/04/id/1190388/

Hahaha that you Kamala?