The Alabama Senate Committee on County and Municipal Government Standing met for the first time on Wednesday of this legislative session.
The committee reviewed SB79, introduced by state Sen. April Weaver, R-Brierfield. The bill has become known as the What is a Woman Act.
The What is a Woman Act has also been proposed by state Rep. Susan Dubose, R-Hoover, in the Alabama House of Representatives. Governor Kay Ivey voiced her desire to sign this bill into law at her State of the State address on Tuesday.
SB79 ultimately passed the committee favorably, but not without input from both proponents and opponents during the public hearing.
The act would define man, woman, boy, girl, father, mother, male and female.
A male is described as “an individual who has, had, will have, or would have, but for a developmental or genetic anomaly or historical accident, the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports, and utilizes sperm for fertilization.” A female is described as “an individual who has, had, or will have, or would have, but for a developmental or genetic anomaly or historical accident, the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports, and utilizes eggs for fertilization.”
“It’s based on fundamental truths that are as old as the book of Genesis and as reliable as the sun in the sky. Men are born men, women are born women, and one can never become the other,” said Weaver.
Weaver filed a substitute bill that only included the definitions for the words man, woman, boy, girl, father, mother, male and female, although the original bill she filed would have created “single-sex spaces” for women and men.
“I believe it’s a women’s protection act because it would prevent males who identify as women from claiming that they have automatic right to access to specific women’s spaces, and I believe we as women should be standing up for that,” said Weaver.
Proponents of the bill argue that this bill simply codifies term definitions into law without any adverse effects. It will assist state agencies and create more precise information gathered about health statistics. Representatives from both the Alabama Policy Institute and the Eagle Forum of Alabama appeared to speak in favor of the bill.
“When you’re looking at cancer rates or all these different health things come out, you need to know if you’re looking at a real man or a real woman, you need to know the truth,” said Becky Gerritson, executive director of the Eagle Forum of Alabama.
Some of the opposition to the bill came from sitting committee members, such as Kirk Hatcher, D-Montgomery.
“We’re talking about other human beings, and that we are not here, I certainly am not, here to advance an executive order out of D.C. that seeks to says that as far as a person is concerned, that there’s male and female. So I just want to be clear that engaging in further marginalizing folks and coming up with this clever language about no one would be necessarily harmed by this, we’re just doing definitions. We see you, and what we see is not good,” said Hatcher.
A majority voted in favor of reporting SB79 favorably to the state Senate.
