West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, on April 24, became the 16th state attorney general to sign a promise to support legislation to safeguard the sports opportunities and personal privacy of female high school and college students.
At the signing ceremony in Charleston sponsored by the organization Independent Women’s Voice (IWV), Mr. Morrisey, a Republican who is running for governor, stated that “the integrity of all sports and the safety of women is under attack by the woke Left.”
“It’s time to stand up for what’s right, fair, and just and continue fighting to protect our young girls and women across the state,” he said.
The document was drafted by representatives from Independent Women’s Voice, the Independent Women’s Law Center, and the feminist group Women’s Liberation Front.
Support for Women’s Bill of Rights Spreading
WBR’s language has been used as a model for bills enacted into law in Kansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Idaho. According to IWV, it is currently being moved through the legislatures of Alabama, Louisiana, Iowa, and Mississippi.
Despite strong public support, a bill to enable the Republican-controlled West Virginia State Legislature to legally define the term “woman” died without action when the current session expired on March 10. The legislation may come up again if Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican, calls a special session.
The preamble describes WBR as “An act to Define Sex-Based Terms Used in State Code, Establish the State’s Interest in Protecting Single-Sex Spaces, and Ensure the Accuracy of Publicly Collected Data.”
The stated purpose of the act is to “bring clarity, certainty, and uniformity to the laws of the State regarding sex discrimination, privacy, equality of the sexes, and benefits or services specifically provided to males/men and to females/women.”
While acknowledging that males and females are legally equal, the act declares “they are not the same,” and are not “interchangeable,” because of “immutable biological differences” that are manifest prior to birth and increase over time.
WBR’s proponents contend that the clarification of certain terms has become necessary due to some inconsistencies in state codes, policies, and court rulings.
The resulting confusion has “endangered women’s rights … and has put the existence of private, single-sex spaces in jeopardy,” the WBR states.
What Is a Woman?
The definition section of the WBR defines the term “woman” as an adult human of the female sex.The word female means “a natural person who has had, will have through the course of normal development, or would have but for a developmental anomaly or accident, the reproductive system that at some point produces ova,” according to the model bill.
The term “sex,” is used to classify or describe a natural person. Sex is defined as a “state of being either male or female as observed or clinically verified at birth.”
A “girl” is defined by the WBR as a human female who is a legal minor under the laws of the state.
The word “male” refers to a natural person who “has had, will have through the course of normal development, or would have but for a developmental anomaly, genetic anomaly, or accident, the reproductive system that at some point produces sperm.”
No Third Sex
According to the WBR, “There are only two sexes, and every individual is either male or female.”Individuals with congenital and medically verifiable differences or disorders in sex development do not constitute a “third sex.”
Sex, according to WBR, does not include so-called “gender identity, or any other term intended to convey a person’s subjective sense of self.” Any such term is “not synonymous” or a substitute for the word “sex” as defined in the bill.
The model bill allows the state and its instrumentalities to provide and fund single-sex prisons and detention centers, domestic violence shelters, sports teams and athletic competitions, locker rooms, bathrooms, and living facilities.
The WBR also requires the use of the terms defined above by state and local governments in data collection and maintenance.
The WBR website states, “We know what a woman is, what a female is, and what a mother is. Our politicians and our laws should too.”
According to the promoters of WBR, many sex-based words like female, male, man, and woman are used frequently in law. The problem is that transgender activists have recently sought to redefine the words and “separate sex from biology.”
Defenders of trans women competing in women’s sports argue that binary sporting events do not equitably serve non-binary athletes. They contend that the traditional definitions of women and girls are not inclusive enough and that the commonly proffered arguments of physical and biochemical advantages of trans-women have not been sufficiently substantiated by science.
A trans-woman is a woman who was assigned a male at birth but later claims a female gender identity.
On March 31, 2023, World Athletics, a regulatory body for international track and field competitions, banned transgender women, defined as an individual who went through male puberty, from competing.
