On Thursday, the Alabama House of Representatives passed legislation that would define biological sex as the gender of legal record for purposes of the state of Alabama.
The legislation is sponsored by State Representative Susan DuBose (R-Hoover). ‘The What is a Woman Act’ defines man, woman, boy, girl, father, mother, male, female, sex for purpose of state law. According to the bill, sex is determined by genetics at birth.
Rep. DuBose did adopt a committee substitute version when it was on the floor of the House. There was also one amendment added to the bill.
“I want to thank the gentlelady for all the tremendous amount of hard work that we put into getting this amendment together and agreed upon,” said Rep. Neal Rafferty (D-Birmingham). “What this amendment does is to make sure that we have guardrails to protect the well-established rights as far as protections against gender discrimination and sex discrimination.”
“There were some particular concerns about unintended consequences with this bill and what this amendment does is clear up any of those so that we have federal statute and laws and case law that this would not affect under state law,” Rafferty explained.
The Rafferty floor amendment was adopted 95 to 0.
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“I still have concerns about the bill,” said Rep. Marilyn Lands (D-Madison). “I don’t believe it does anything to protect women’s rights and I believe it is attempting to silence transgender and nonbinary Alabamians.”
“As a licensed professional counselor, I know the toll that this will take on our LGBTQ+ community especially our youth,” said Lands. “This bill is an unacceptable continuation of these dangerous policies.”
House Majority Leader Scott Stadthagen (R-Hartselle) also brought a floor amendment, based on an incident his daughter had in summer camp where a biological boy, who identifies as a girl was staying with the girls at camp.
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“My daughter has been in this situation where she was in a bathroom, which she thought was all girls, and it was actually a boy that was dressed as a girl in her bathroom,” said Stadthagen. “She called me crying. I picked her up at 10:30 at night from the camp.”
Leader Stadthagen withdrew his amendment as it could potentially have caused problems for our colleges and universities.
HB111 passed the Alabama House by a vote of 73 to 24. The legislation now goes to the Alabama Senate for their consideration.
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