Bill defining ‘men' and ‘women' passes WV House, sent back to Senate for final approval

Yahoo

07-03-2025

Del. Shawn Fluharty, D-Ohio, questions Del. J.B. Akers, R-Kanawha, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, about a bill that would define "men" and "women" by biological sex in state code on Friday, March 7, 2025. (Perry Bennett | West Virginia Legislative Photography)
A bill that would define 'men' and 'women' in state code — thus barring transgender people from using facilities in certain places that match their gender identity — passed the West Virginia House of Delegates on Friday.
Senate Bill 456 already passed the state Senate earlier this week. Now, the bill will return to its originating body where lawmakers there will need to concur or deny amendments made to the bill in the House.
With four members absent and not voting, the House approved the bill 87-9 on Friday; every Democrat in the body voted against the bill.
SB 456 will, for the first time, define 'men' and 'women' in state code by tying the terms to a person's sex; it does not recognize the existence of nonbinary people or those who do not identify as 'male' or 'female,' though it does require that accommodations be made for people who are intersex or who are born with similar conditions.
Through the definitions added to code, the bill bans transgender people from accessing bathrooms, locker rooms and other facilities that align with their gender identity. Those bans apply to all state-owned buildings, including public schools, higher education institutions, state corrections facilities and domestic violence shelters that receive state funding.
There are no provisions, however, that levy criminal penalties against schools, higher education institutions or others who fail to uphold the bill's requirements.
On Thursday, lawmakers in the House voted down an amendment from Del. Kayla Young, D-Kanawha, that would have stopped the proposed bill from allowing individuals to 'inspect' someone's genitals — adults or children — to prove their sex.
The body did, via voice vote, approve an alternate amendment from Del. J.B. Akers, R-Kanawha, that will only allow a 'treating health care provider' to 'visually or physically examine a minor child' for the purpose of verifying their 'biological sex' without the 'consent of the child's parent, guardian, or custodian.' There are no protections against such exams for adults.
In debate on the House floor Friday, Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, said it's obvious that the point of passing laws like SB 456 is to gain political favor from those who have made denying trans people rights a staple of their beliefs.
While the legislation may be legally toothless, he continued, it will still hurt people who are already marginalized — especially trans people.
'A bill like this does have real consequences, and real people do get hurt, and unfortunately, it's a very, very small subsection of our society that simply wants to exist and be left alone,' Pushkin said. 'Their elected officials instead run bills aimed directly at them, putting the target directly on their back because of the political expediency involved … I would gladly rather have a negative mailer sent out against me, really, than to be firmly planted on the wrong side of history today.'
Akers, who chairs the House Committee on Judiciary which approved this bill before it came to the whole floor for a vote, said that he understands transgender people exist and 'should be treated with dignity and respect.'
He continued, however, saying that dignity and respect should not include access to 'single-sex' spaces.
'There's a reason why we have federal laws such as the Violence Against Women Act,' Akers said. 'It's because we recognize the disparity in power between men and women, which, again, men and women are legally equal in all respects, but physically as a matter of common sense, they are not, which is why they deserve protections in places such as shelters and correctional institutions.'
There is no empirical evidence to support claims that trans people commit harassment or assault against others when using bathrooms or facilities that align with their gender identity. Instead, people who are trans are more likely to be victims of such attacks when forced to use facilities that don't match their gender identity, according to a study from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. In that study, nearly 70% of transgender people surveyed said they experienced verbal harassment in gender-segregated bathrooms and changing rooms. Ten percent of respondents reported physical assault.
Transgender children already face higher rates of harassment, assault and sexual violence than their cisgender peers. A 2019 study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that the rate of sexual assaults against trans middle and high school students at schools that restrict their bathroom and locker room access based on sex jumped from 26% to 35% in the preceding 12 months.
And in West Virginia, the state Coalition of Domestic Violence opposes the measure. A leader for the shelter told lawmakers that SB 456, if passed, could impact their ability to serve transgender individuals. Additionally, tight budgets could make it impossible to build separate spaces based on sex as required under the bill.
'It denies individual freedoms under the guise of protecting women and is counter to our survivor-centered and empowerment values,' the coalition said in a prior statement.
SB 456 is one of several pieces of legislation lawmakers are considering that would explicitly target transgender people.
On Thursday, the Senate passed a bill that would ban hormone treatment for children diagnosed with gender dysphoria, nearly eliminating any options in West Virginia for gender-affirming care for youth. Another measure would mandate that teachers tell parents when a child requests to be referred to by a name or pronouns that are different from the student's 'biological sex.'
Democrats in the Legislature have criticized Republicans' focus on such bills, which they say don't do anything to improve issues in the state and instead attack a small percentage of people who are already marginalized.
In a statement Friday, Andrew Schneider, director of the statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization Fairness West Virginia, said the bill is a continuation of the Legislature's 'all-out attack on transgender people.'
'Make no mistake: Gov. Patrick Morrisey's bathroom ban will hurt countless transgender people, but it will also hurt women who are not transgender,' he said. 'This bill empowers a hateful but vocal minority to question the gender of anyone using the bathroom in our state … When lawmakers police who is and isn't a woman, when they dictate what bodies are acceptable, when they decide who gets to be safe, we all lose.'
In a line of questioning with Akers during discussion of SB 456 on Friday, Del. Shawn Fluharty, D-Ohio, asked whether any measure in the proposed legislation would bring revenue or jobs to the state's struggling economy. Akers, in response, said he is 'not aware of any.'
'It blows my mind how many times we could recycle the same damn bill over and over again — because that's what we're doing. Just recycle, wash, rinse, repeat, do nothing,' Fluharty said. '[These are ] bills that do nothing for people of West Virginia. [They] only do something for the politicians in West Virginia. [They are] election bills. That's what these are really about. Doesn't add one single job we just heard, doesn't add one single job. Doesn't raise one single dollar in the state.'
The legislation is a key priority for Gov. Patrick Morrisey, who promised it in his State of the State speech last month.
The bill is similar to last year's Women's Bill of Rights, which would have codified the definitions of 'man' and 'woman' and banned transgender people from using restrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity. The Legislature last year ran out of time to pass that bill, which was a priority for former Gov. Jim Justice.
If the House's changes to the bill are approved by the Senate, SB 456 will be the third piece of Legislation requested by Morrisey that is sent to him for a signature. The first two — House Bill 2024 and HB 2025, which update terms for the state's personal income tax and corporate net income tax respectively — have already been signed by the governor.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX