Latest news with #SenateBill458
CBC
28-03-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Indigenous 2SLGBTQ+ advocates brace for changes under Trump
Social Sharing Indigenous people who advocate for 2SLGBTQ+ communities are questioning how their rights may change under the Trump administration in the U.S. In January, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an order that the United States will recognize only two sexes, male and female, that are unchangeable. Alex Wilson from Opaskwayak Cree Nation in Manitoba, an activist for queer, transgender, and two-spirit rights, said she sees growing anti-transgender sentiments brewing south of the border. "It's a cycle that happens when there's policy that allows for the continuation of violence or that kind of condones it, then we see people picking it up and acting out those behaviours," Wilson said. "They're not acknowledging that there is a gender diversity or even sexual diversity. And we're seeing that trickle over here, too." Wilson sees these policies as a danger to Indigenous sovereignty. "It negates the reality that we have had many genders, not just two, three, but many understandings of gender and many sexualities in our nations since the beginning. And it's even part of some of our creation stories." Montana bill ruled unconstitutional David Herrera, co-founder and executive director of the Montana Two Spirit Society, is of Mestizo and adopted Blackfeet background and an advocate and educator for 2SLGBTQ+ communities. In 2023, the Montana Two Spirit Society along with members of the transgender, intersex community filed a lawsuit in Missoula County District Court challenging Montana Senate Bill 458, which would define "male" and "female" as binary based on the presence of XY or XX chromosomes. They argued it would infringe on the rights of members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community, as well as the cultural and spiritual importance of two-spirit people. Last month, the plaintiffs won and the bill was declared unconstitutional. "It's definitely part of the colonization that has occurred and the attempt to erase the two-spirit culture," said Herrera. He said policies like these are nothing new and have played a culturally detrimental part in colonial history that has tried to erase Indigenous 2SLGBTQ+ identities. "We are not going to go away. We are going to continue," said Herrera. Charlie Amáyá Scott grew up in the Navajo Nation and now works as an educator focusing on what it means to be queer, trans, and Indigenous. "I think what I'm seeing within my community is that there is a lot of fear of what this really means in the long run," Scott said. "There's a lot of fear of the violence that could occur, whether it's being detained at the borders, whether it's being questioned about who you really are or whether it's you're being arrested, which all of that specifically would lead to incarceration." Her focus is ensuring that people and their stories are protected. "If I'm being quite frank, my concern is about myself right now and has been about my community ensuring their survival. I have been really focused on ensuring that my trans siblings and my relatives, whether they're two-spirit or part of the LGBTQ community, survives," said Scott.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Bill redefining sex passes Senate Judiciary committee
Sen. Carl Glimm, R-Kila speaks during the 2023 Legislative Session. (Photo by Nicole Girten/Daily Montanan) A bill to redefine sex in Montana law, which closely resembles legislation struck down from last session, was heard in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday morning. Senate Bill 437, brought by Sen. Carl Glimm, R-Kila, is 68 pages and seeks to redefine the term 'sex' across a large swath of Montana laws — and builds on a bill struck down by two different judges. It moved forward following a 5-3 vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee along party lines. 'In Montana, biological sex is immutable,' Glimm said in committee. 'You can't change it. There are only two biological sexes. You may claim to be able to change your gender or express your gender in a different way, but you can never change your biological sex.' In 2024, Missoula County District Court Judge Shane Vannatta ruled Senate Bill 458, a similar bill sponsored by Glimm in 2023, was unconstitutional because its subject wasn't clear in the bill's title. Glimm addressed that, too. 'The first challenge, the judge from Missoula said that the title of the bill was confusing. So we've addressed that,' Glimm said. 'We've made the title simple enough that even a judge from Missoula can understand it.' Two weeks ago, Missoula County District Court Judge Leslie Halligan struck down that same law for its contents rather than its title, saying it erased transgender and intersex Montanans. The new bill, SB 437, is specific in its title: 'An act for the codification and general revision of the laws relating to the definition for the words sex, female, and male when referring to a human; providing that the definition of sex refers to biological sex and not gender identity or sexual intercourse; providing that the definition of sex is limited to two types of sexes which are referred to as male and female; providing that the definitions of male and female refer to biological sex and not subjective gender identity.' The bill would define a female as someone who has XX chromosomes and 'would produce relatively large, relatively immobile gametes, or eggs, during her life cycle.' It further adds a caveat, 'An individual who would otherwise fall within this definition, but for a biological or genetic condition, is female.' Meanwhile, the bill would define male as someone who has 'XY chromosomes and produces or would produce small, mobile gametes, or sperm, during his life cycle.' Similar to the definition for female, it adds a caveat as well: 'An individual who would otherwise fall within this definition, but for a biological or genetic condition, is male.' It did have some support, including from the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal advocacy group, which claims the 'homosexual agenda' will destroy both Christianity and society. 'Number one, this bill aligns with what we're seeing the federal government do,' said Matt Sharp, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom. 'On February 19, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued guidance reaffirming that sex refers to a person's immutable biological classification as male or female, and provided definitions consistent with that.' In his closing statement for the bill, Glimm said his legislation wasn't denying anyone anything. 'We're not denying anyone's existence,' Glimm told the committee. 'It's just biology, male and female, there are anomalies, but even those will fit into one of these two categories because of the definition that we're going to use. I look forward to explaining that new definition in a floor amendment.' Khadija Davis, an ACLU Montana representative who testified against the bill, said that's exactly what the legislation would do. 'This bill would force transgender people to live a lie,' Davis said. 'And deny who they are by disclosing the sex they were assigned at birth on documents like a driver's license, marriage license and burial paperwork.' She added: 'This bill also completely erases the reality of intersex and nonbinary people. The existence of trans people is not new, but this new outsized focus on their lives is meant to spread fear and anxiety.' The bill would force intersex and transgender people in the state to identify as the sex they were assigned when they were born, a specific issue brought by plaintiffs in a lawsuit against SB 458. One person in the suit had an XY pattern, which under both the struck-down bill and Glimm's newly introduced legislation, would identify them as a biological male. The person, though, has female genitalia and identifies as a woman. She'd be forced to identify as a male on her wedding license. Planned Parenthood estimates about one in 100 people are born intersex. This can include someone with genitals that do not correspond with their internal hormones or sex organs. Lynne Foss, a pediatric nurse practitioner and representing the Montana Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, spoke to this issue in a comment. 'Some people have XY, but they appear to be female, and their reproductive and endocrine systems are a mixture of what one would consider male and female, and this is often not identified at birth, and instead is often identified at puberty,' Foss said. 'And there are other people that have androgen insensitivity and are typically XY, but they do not develop male external genitalia.' Some people can be intersex and might not be aware. In one example, Scientific American reported a clinical geneticist's account of a patient pregnant with her third child who discovered at age 46 part of her body was 'chromosomally male.' Stigmas around intersex people have long been an issue for that community, and one 2003 study in The Endocrinologist stated, 'intersex patients have frequently been subject to repeated genital examinations which create a feeling of freakishness and unacceptableness.' A more recent study in 2022 International Journal of Impotence Research delved into the topic of 'surgical intervention' at young ages, as well as public understanding of intersex issues. It found, 'Whilst many laypeople do consider intersex and transgender to be analogous (or wrongly consider them identical), those laypeople who are most likely to support intersex human rights are also those who endorse the gender binary the least.' Republican leadership applauded the bill's passage out of judiciary. 'This legislation helps to deliver on Senate Republicans' promise to stand up for Montana values, protect our women and girls, and return sanity to our state government,' Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, said in a statement.
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Kansas police could sell, give away guns seized without criminal convictions under Senate bill
Sen. Stephen Owens, pictured on Jan. 13, 2025, at his desk in the Senate, voiced support for a bill that would let police sell or give away the firearms seized through civil asset forfeiture. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector) TOPEKA — The Senate on Thursday passed a bill that would expand Kansas law enforcement officers' options for confiscated firearms. Under current law, agencies can sell or give away the guns they seize when someone is convicted of a crime, but under civil asset forfeiture, which doesn't require a conviction, selling firearms or giving them away are not available options. When police seize a gun through civil forfeiture, agencies currently have four options: destroy it, use it, give it to another agency to use or send it to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation's forensic lab. Senate Bill 137 would allow police to sell or give guns seized through civil forfeiture to any of the more than 1,200 licensed federal firearms dealers in the state. Sen. Stephen Owens, a Hesston Republican and former owner of Patriot Pawn and Firearms in Newton, introduced the bill in January after he said he received a call from the Harvey County Sheriff, who told Owens that state law was inconsistent. Owens spoke in support of the bill at a Feb. 11 Senate hearing and again on Wednesday when the Senate debated the bill. 'All that this bill is doing is bringing the civil asset forfeiture code in compliance with law that already exists,' Owens said Wednesday. Civil asset forfeiture has been criticized as a method for furthering 'profit-based policing,' a notion voiced by former Rep. Gail Finney, a Wichita Democrat who served in the Legislature for 13 years before her death in 2022. Finney pushed for comprehensive reform of Kansas' decades-old civil forfeiture laws, arguing they ran the risk of violating constitutional rights. That reform finally came in 2024 with Senate Bill 458. While civil forfeiture doesn't require a criminal conviction, it does require the government to show by a preponderance of evidence that the property in question was used in illegal activity. Vehicles and currency make up the bulk of seized assets in Kansas, according to data from the KBI. Megan Hillbish, a lobbyist for the Kansas State Rifle Association, wrote in testimony that the process of properly and legally destroying firearms can be costly and time-consuming for law enforcement agencies. 'This bill would allow law enforcement agencies to instead have the opportunity to make money from transferring the firearms to properly licensed federal firearms dealers,' Hillbish wrote. 'This could help offset costs and incentivize firearms being used in responsible manners.' The bill also drew support from the Kansas Association of Chiefs of Police, the Kansas Sheriffs Association and the Kansas Peace Officers Association. 'This consistency makes sense,' said Ed Klumpp, a lobbyist for the three law enforcement associations, in written testimony. No opponents testified on the bill, but Sen. Patrick Schmidt, a Topeka Democrat, challenged the bill Wednesday on the Senate floor with an amendment that would only allow police to sell firearms at public auctions. He said the change would help alleviate his concerns about transparency in how police unload the firearms. 'I think that as 137 is written right now, it does create significant loopholes and perverse interests that we don't want happening surrounding the transfer or sale of weapons, especially those that have possibly been used in furtherance of a crime,' Schmidt said. The amendment failed, and every Senator but Schmidt voted Thursday to advance the bill to the House.
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Court strikes down Montana law narrowly defining ‘male' and ‘female'
Photo illustration by Getty Images. Missoula County District Court Judge Leslie Halligan didn't mince words in her order striking down Senate Bill 458, passed in 2023, which reshaped Montana law to only have two sexes, male and female. In her ruling, released Tuesday, she said that the bill literally erased some Montana residents from existence. In doing so, Halligan said that Senate Bill 458 was facially unconstitutional, and warned that similar attempts to narrowly define sexes based on political ideology, not science, was likely to meet a similar fate. The plaintiffs in the case were a group of transgender and intersex residents, many of whom were born with genetic conditions that produced different sex traits and characteristics found in both male and female. The state had argued that even if a strict definition of male and female didn't quite encompass everyone, the changes had no tangible effects on the residents. However, one resident who was born with an XY pattern, which would normally signify a biological male, has female genitalia and identifies as a woman. Yet on her wedding license, she'd be forced to identify as a male. The judge said that not only does SB 458 not quite work for some residents, it completely closes them out of aspects of the state, violating the equal protections clause of the Montana Constitution, which guarantees equal treatment to people in the same circumstances. 'By declaring as a matter of law that a human being can only be 'exactly' one of two sexes, SB 458 explicitly excludes (two plaintiffs) from the definition of human beings, causing immediate harm traceable to SB458,' the court decision said. 'In addition to lacking legal recognition under law, individual plaintiffs also assert that SB458 restricts their ability to self-identify their gender.' The State of Montana had also argued that 'the bear is dead' and that Halligan's ruling didn't matter because of an earlier constitutional court challenge that halted SB 458 because it violated a provision in the constitution that says that a bill can only address one topic. However, Halligan rejected that argument, and warned that the issue wasn't merely unresolved, but very much present because of a bill that is moving through the Montana Legislature that 'bears remarkable similarity' to SB 458. LC4192, requested by Glimm, a Republican from Kila, is currently in the drafting stage and legal review, according to the bill tracker website of the Legislature on Wednesday. The title of the bill is 'Revise definition of sex in Montana law.' 'The issues present before the court do not regard a generalized grievance with no threat of harm, instead it presents a justiciable controversy properly decided in the judicial form, as the threat of harm in enforcement of SB 458 or bills of similar character, remains prevalent,' the court said. Attorneys for the state also argued that SB 458 was 'narrowly tailored' to merely address something scientific, but Halligan said the measure didn't add clarity and veered into the constitutionally protected area of privacy: 'When the Legislature 'thrusts itself into this protected zone of individual privacy under the guise of protecting patient's health, but, in reality, does so because of prevailing political ideology and the unrelenting pressure from individuals and organizations promoting their own beliefs and values,' the state is not only infringing on personal autonomy, 'it is, as well, intellectually and morally indefensible.' By restricting the definition of sex in a manner which interferes with even that of a doctor and patients' definition, SB 458 prohibits the individualized care and exercise of professional medical judgment which should be afforded to the individual, in violation of the right to privacy.' Attorneys with the state also tried to argue, 'Plaintiffs are the rare few to whom SB 458's definitions might not squarely apply,' a legal conclusion which Halligan rejected it, saying it was trying legalize discrimination: 'The state has misrepresented the requirements of a facial challenge in the context of an equal protection claim. By nature, such a claim necessarily involves some class of people being treated better than another class of people. Taken to its logical end, the state's argument would preclude any facial equal protection claims under law, on the grounds that the challenged state action is not unconstitutional when applied to the class who is not experiencing unequal treatment. Such interpretation would eviscerate the protections built into the Montana Constitution. It has never been the law in this state that a rare few, even if they are 'despised,' should lack protection under the law.' The State of Montana also argued that discrimination against a gender was still permissible, but that discrimination against sex was protected, an argument that the court criticized, pointing to federal cases that had rejected the same logic. In a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court case, Bostock vs. Clayton County, the court held, 'discrimination on the basis of transgender status is a form of sex-based discrimination.' Halligan said that the Legislature and SB 458 is attempting to make distinctions that don't make sense, and are contrary to the growing body of legal decisions. 'In essence, the Legislature seeks to permit discrimination against a person whose sex does not align with their gender identity, believing it to be legally distinct from discrimination directed at a person on the basis of sex,' the court said. She called that 'a legal fiction.' 'Under SB458's definitions, 'female' and 'male' cisgender people, i.e., those whose gender identity conforms with their biological sex are still protected by Montana's antidiscrimination laws, but those who did not fit squarely into either category, i.e., transgender, intersex, and Two Spirit individuals are no longer protected,' the court said. 'Put another way, SB458 now leaves a gap in protection against sex discrimination for individuals whose gender identities do not align with their biological sex, as such interest would be permitting sex discrimination towards a minority population, in violation of the policy of the State of Montana.' Halligan ruled SB 458 unconstitutional and ordered the state to pay the plaintiffs' reasonable attorney fees. The Montana Attorney General's Office, which litigated the case in defense of the measure, was not immediately available for comment, and it is not known whether it will appeal Halligan's decision. Anna Tellez, one of the plaintiffs in the case, represented by Rylee Sommers-Flanagan and Dimitrios Tsolakidis of Upper Seven Law, cheered the decision as a win for all Montanans. 'I don't only see this as a win for gender diverse or intersex Montanans, but for every person who calls Montana home. The state cannot overstep its bounds and discriminate against you for arbitrary reasons as it sees fit,' Tellez said. 'This fits the most basic philosophy of living in Montana: Mind your own business.'
