Behind the bills: Lawmakers aim to limit or reverse transgender rights
The proposals aim to redefine gender, prohibit gender-affirming surgery and require schools to notify parents of any “change” in their child’s “emotional health,” possibly including if they come out.
The Wyoming Legislature could consider a number of bills aimed at restricting the rights or privacy of transgender individuals, especially minors, during the 2024 Legislative Session.
The proposed laws include a ban on gender-affirming surgeries for anyone under the age of 18, a bill that could require schools to out students to their parents, and a declaration that sex and gender are essentially the same.
During last year’s legislative session, Wyoming passed its first anti-LGBTQ law in nearly 50 years. That new law forbids transgender women and girls from competing on high school teams consistent with their gender identity.
But Wyoming rejected other anti-LGBTQ bills last year, including two attempts to ban all gender-affirming care for transgender youth and a near carbon copy of Florida’s infamous “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which sought to restrict what elementary school teachers could discuss in the classroom — and which also could have required schools to out queer students to unsafe families.
Some elements of those failed bills have shown up again in this year’s slate of proposed anti-LGBTQ legislation.
Like all non-budget bills this year, the proposals will have to win a two-thirds vote to pass introduction. If any or all make it past that hurdle, Wyoming is likely to see some of the same fierce policy debates it witnessed last year.
Redefining gender with the What is a Woman Act
The What is a Woman Act would declare in state law that sex and gender are determined by either sex organs or chromosomes.
Sex organs and chromosomes are part of how scientists define sex, but they do not factor into the definition of gender. Whereas sex typically refers to anatomy and hormones, gender typically refers to one’s identity and the roles one is expected to assume in the world at large.
“Although ‘sex’ is often incorrectly thought to have the same meaning as ‘gender,’ the terms describe different but connected constructs,” states the Office of Research on Women’s Health, a division of the National Institutes of Health. “Sex and gender shape health independently as distinct factors, as well as interactively through the many ways in which they intersect and influence each other.”
The What is a Woman Act, on the other hand, equates terms traditionally referring to gender or presentation (such as man and woman) with terms that typically refer to sex (such male and female). Thus, the bill effectively defines sex and gender as one and the same — a notion rejected not just by the Institutes of Health, but by every leading medical or psychological authority, and even dictionaries.
The bill offers only one caveat, presumably in reference to the 1 to 2 percent of the population who is born intersex.
“A person born with a medically recognized condition of a ‘disorder or difference in sex development’ shall be provided legal protections and accommodations afforded under the Americans with Disabilities Act, as amended, and any other applicable Wyoming law,” the bill states.
The What is a Woman Act enables the state and its agencies or subdivisions to “recognize or enforce distinctions between the sexes” when it comes to sports, prisons, crisis centers, locker rooms and restrooms.
“With respect to biological sex, separate accommodations are not inherently unequal,” the bill states.
The What is a Woman Act is sponsored by Rep. Jeanette Ward (HD-57) and co-sponsored by a number of other right-wing legislators, many of them members of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.
Where is this coming from?
It’s important to note this bill did not originate in a vacuum.
Everyday people might be confused or concerned about the way society balances inclusion and fairness. Fortunately, serious, good faith conversations about that very topic are abundant.
Science communicators have produced scores of articles, podcasts and videos about the science of sex and gender, about transgender inclusion in society, about gender-affirming care, and about fairness in sports. Sports authorities are hosting serious discussions about how to balance fairness in sports with human rights. Artists continue to probe the philosophy of the debate and the experience of being trans.
There are plenty of good, honest sources working through what is a complex medical and ethical topic.
But the specific concerns underpinning the What is a Woman Act have been popularized by decidedly bad actors.
The bill itself is named after a 2022 documentary of the same name by DailyWire pundit Matt Walsh. The documentary took aim at the culture’s growing acceptance of transgender people and came down pointedly against that acceptance. That was a foregone conclusion for the doc, given that its creator, Walsh, is and has been loudly transphobic. His supporters would object to that term, but he has spent years pushing the “groomer” moral panic — the idea that LGBTQ community leaders and members are pedophiles targeting children for conversion — and he frequently uses his platform to spread anti-trans rhetoric.
For example: in the immediate wake of the Club Q shooting, during which a gunman killed five people at a gay bar in Colorado Springs, Walsh seemingly blamed the victims for their own deaths.
“If [drag shows] are causing this much chaos and violence, why do you insist on continuing to do it?” Walsh said on his show just two days after the shooting.
The documentary itself was criticized for the dishonest methods it employed and its lack of actual research, but it made the rounds in right-wing circles after Elon Musk personally promoted it.
The text of Wyoming’s bill, with its various definitions and provisions, mirrors the so-called Women’s Bill of Rights, which has inspired similar bills across the country.
These bills have been championed by the likes of Riley Gaines, a speaker who visited the University of Wyoming campus last semester.
Gaines is a former NCAA Division I swimmer who once tied for fifth place with a trans athlete and has spent the years since misrepresenting the current discussion about transgender inclusion in women’s sports to sympathetic right-wing audiences.
During Gaines’ appearance in Laramie, Ward told the former athlete about her plans to bring the What is a Woman Act before the Wyoming Legislature, and asked Gaines if she would testify in its favor.
“Girl, yes,” Gaines said in response.
The crusade to outlaw gender-affirming care
Last year, the Wyoming Legislature saw two bills aimed at outlawing gender-affirming care. One of those bills would have defined providing such care as felony child abuse, punishable by up to ten years in prison. The other bill would have stripped medical professionals of their licenses if they were found to have offered gender-affirming care.
Both bills passed in the Wyoming Senate, but both then died in the House.
This year, House Bill 63 aims to keep the crusade against gender-affirming care alive — albeit in a scaled back way.
Gender-affirming care is not one thing. It looks different based on a minor’s maturity level, age and goals. At a very young age, that care typically entails social transitioning — letting a child wear what they want or letting a child decide their own name or pronouns. As a child ages, that care can start to include hormone blockers, and later hormone therapy, and much later even surgery.
Not all transgender youth choose surgery. But for those who do seek it, it typically comes later in their healthcare journey, after years of counseling and hormone therapy, and almost always as a legal adult.
While previous attempts to outlaw gender-affirming care took aim at all of it, this year’s bill, HB63, takes aim solely at surgery, and seeks to prohibit only that particular element of gender-affirming care.
“No physician shall, for purposes of transitioning a child’s biological sex to a sex different than the sex assigned at birth as determined by the sex organs, chromosomes and endogenous profiles of the child, or for purposes of affirming the child’s perception of the child’s sex if that perception is inconsistent with the child’s biological sex … Perform a surgery that sterilizes the child, including castration, vasectomy, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, metoidioplasty, orchiectomy, penectomy, phalloplasty and vaginoplasty (or) Perform a mastectomy,” the bill states.
The bill makes exceptions for cisgender children with special conditions, such as precocious puberty.
HB63 is sponsored by Rep. Lloyd Larsen (HD-54) and co-sponsored by four other lawmakers in the house and senate. It has not been endorsed by a committee.
“Parental rights” and the possibility of outing students
Senate File 9, dubbed the “Parental rights in education” bill, also presents a scaled back version of a bill that failed last year.
During the 2023 Legislative Session, lawmakers considered — but ultimately failed to pass — a close copy of the infamous “Don’t Say Gay” bill passed by Florida in 2022. Both the original Florida bill and Wyoming’s version contained two main components:
Language restricting what elementary school teachers could discuss in the classroom, prohibiting them from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity.
Language requiring schools to tell parents about any changes in their child’s “physical, mental or emotional health or well-being” while giving parents greater control over the health screenings their children receive at school.
While both provisions might sound innocuous at first blush, advocates of LGBTQ+ rights and education officials spoke out against both.
This year’s bill — Senate File 9 — drops the first component but retains the second. The bill no longer dictates what teachers can discuss in the classroom, but it would still require schools to notify parents of “a change in the student’s physical, mental or emotional health or well‑being and the school’s ability to provide a safe and supportive learning environment for the student.”
This has been interrupted by many — both for and against the bill — as requiring schools to “out” gay, transgender or gender-nonconforming youth to their parents.
That issue is more salient than ever as teachers and school administrators across the country try to respect their students’ wishes and privacy in a world where not every parent is supportive of queer youth.
In Sweetwater County, parents have brought a lawsuit against the school district, alleging that school officials let their child socially transition without informing the parents. Similar lawsuits are cropping up nationwide.
Health screenings and child abuse
Senate File 9 would also require schools to inform parents about any health screenings before they are administered, and it would give parents the opportunity to opt their child out of those screenings.
The Wyoming Education Association strongly objects to this provision, saying it will likely enable child abuse by allowing abusive parents to shield their child’s injuries from any outside eyes.
“Our schools are the frontline defense for catching cases of abuse and neglect — and these are mostly done through those health screenings,” the education association’s Tate Mullen told lawmakers during a committee hearing in November.
Mullen added the Department of Family Services saw a stark decrease in its caseload in 2020 when those health screenings were not occurring due to COVID.
“We weren’t providing these screenings, and their caseload plummeted,” Mullen said.