By Mike Cason
The Alabama Senate passed a bill Thursday to define male and female in state law, a bill that Gov. Kay Ivey has said she looked forward to signing.
Opponents say the bill will lead to discrimination, harassment, and more marginalization of transgender people.
The bill, by Sen. April Weaver, R-Brierfield, passed by a vote of 26-5, with Democratic senators casting the no votes.
It goes to the House, which passed a similar bill last year, the What is a Woman Act by Rep. Susan DuBose, R-Hoover.
Thursday was the first day this session that lawmakers could vote on bills.
Gov. Kay Ivey mentioned the bill during her State of the State address Tuesday night, when she talked about her priorities for the legislative session that started Tuesday.
“There are only two genders: Male and female. I look forward to finally putting my signature on the What is a Woman bill by Representative Susan Dubose,” Ivey said.
Weaver’s bill defines a female as someone whose reproductive system produces ova and a male as someone whose reproductive system produces sperm.
“It’s based on fundamental truths that are as old as the book of Genesis and are as reliable as the sun and the sky,” Weaver said. “Men are born men and women are born women.”
Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, spoke at length about the bill and said it would lead to discrimination.
“It will permit our justice system to discriminate against transgender people simply because they are transgender,” Smitherman said.
Smitherman said he could not turn a deaf ear to discrimination because of what he experienced growing up in the era of Jim Crow segregation and later as a Black man.
“If you don’t live it, you don’t understand it,” Smitherman said.
“No matter what we think, no matter how we feel, no matter how we may agree or disagree, God made all of us,” Smitherman said. “And if you’re a citizen of this country, you do have rights.”
Weaver’s bill initially required public schools, public colleges, jails, juvenile detention centers, and other facilities to restrict restrooms, changing rooms, and sleeping quarters based on biological sex.
That was taken out of the bill in the committee. Weaver said the amended bill’s purpose is simply to define male and female. She said that will be important guidance for state agencies.
Smitherman said the bill is more than definitions because it creates law that could be used to establish discriminatory policies against transgender people.
The amended bill says, “Neither the state nor any political subdivision of the state shall be prohibited from establishing separate single-sex spaces or environments for males and females when biology, privacy, safety, or fairness are implicated.”
Smitherman said lawmakers can’t pass a law on definitions and pretend it won’t have consequences.
“We can’t wash our hands,” Smitherman said. “Our hands are not clean because we pass it and put them behind us.”
Weaver said it is logical to put the definitions of sex in law.
“I would argue that it’s indisputable biology and commonsense fact,” Weaver said.
“I don’t think we’re doing anything controversial,” Weaver said. “It’s a very simple bill.”
Smitherman said he did not think Weaver intended for the bill to be discriminatory, but said it could be used that way once it become state law.
The bill conforms with an emphasis by Republicans nationally that opponents say is intended to marginalize transgender people.
DuBose, the House sponsor of the bill, was at the White House on Tuesday for the signing of President Donald Trump’s executive order that bans transgender athletes from competing in girl’s and women’s sports.
During a public hearing on Weaver’s bill Wednesday in a Senate committee, several transgender men and women spoke in opposition to the bill during a public hearing on Wednesday.
Allison Montgomery of Huntsville said the bill is an example of model legislation in multiple states that targets transgender people for political purposes.
“What they’ve got to do to get people to the polls is focus on us and create a monster out of us, insinuating that we’re predatory, insinuating that we are somehow a contagion upon society,” Montgomery said. “It’s just a smokescreen. We have been here living our lives amongst everybody else. And nobody has any problem with it.
“We go about our lives every day. And just associate with other folks and be the genders that we are. And there’s no problem with it.”
Micah Saunders, a transgender man from Birmingham, said at the public hearing Wednesday that he would be forced to use women’s facilities under the law.
“With my beard and receding hairline, I believe it’s obvious that I’m a man,” Saunders said. “However, with this bill’s narrow definition, I would be considered a female. Many men like me would be required to use women’s bathrooms, locker rooms and dorms.”
Voting against the bill were Democratic Sens. Smitherman, Linda Coleman-Madison, Merika Coleman, Vivian Davis Figures, and Bobby Singleton.
Sen. Billy Beasley of Clayton was the only Democratic senator to vote for the bill.
