The bill, passed in the House a couple of weeks ago, is due for a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday at 10am.
I’m not terribly worried about the bill passing the Senate, especially since Susan Collins has withdrawn her cosponsorship. Here’s why:
Here are the changes in more detail as laid out by Collins’ spokesperson:
- “Those changes included exemptions to make clear that vital programs that serve men and women separately, like domestic violence and homeless shelters, could continue to do so. Sen. Collins recommended language like that in the VAWA Reauthorization Act of 2013, signed by President Obama, allowing organizations to provide housing and support in separate facilities.
- Sen. Collins also has concerns about some of the language pertaining to religious organizations, and thinks that faith-based community partners, like Catholic Charities, and the important services they provide should not be unfairly excluded from receiving federal funding.
- In addition, she has been a leading advocate for girls’ and women’s sports, and also transgender rights, and she believes this complex issue needs further study.”
Of course, the impact of the Equality Act on these areas would be far more dire than the anodyne tone here suggests, but it’s good to see that Collins and her staff are aware of the issues.
However, this hearing is an excellent opportunity to get gender-critical views out there. An opportunity that was denied by the House process, which had no committee hearings on the bill.
What activists are recommending right now, then, is to request that opponents of the Equality Act be heard at the committee. Specifically:
We are attempting to get the Committee to call M. Lynette Hartsell as a representative of LGB Alliance USA and CoFA and Dr. Callie Burt, an Associate Professor at Georgia State University as witnesses on Wednesday.
Please call Senators Durbin, Grassley, and Tillis to urge them to get CoFA representatives on the list of witnesses. Durbin’s direct line is: 202.224.2152 and Grassley’s is: 202-224-3744. Sen. Tillis’s line is 202-224-6342. Tell them how important it is that the Equality Act be amended in order to protect the rights of women and girls. Ask them to call the above CoFA members as witnesses and to amend the bill. CoFA can be reached at <info@sexbasedrights.org>.
Also, please email all members of the Senate Judiciary Committee about this. Find their email addresses here: https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/about/members%20
I’m going to share a couple of links with you, but before I do, just remember, this is the heart of it:
Yes, the Equality Act proposes to destroy religious exemptions – that is well documented by religious groups opposing the act. It is just as important to remember this single, salient point: The Equality Act would replace “sex” as a category in government rules and regulations with “gender identity” – which is, essentially, self-identity.
There is no legal standard for declaring “gender identity.”
It’s what you feel and declare. That’s it.
To mandate this as a basic element of American life and law would be a disaster, not only for common sense, but for women and girls.
One of the proposed witnesses, Callie Burt, has an excellent primer on this published a couple of days ago. If you are confused, or know people who are, read and share. She lays it out quite clearly.
Making matters worse still is a problem that is likely familiar to many readers: gender self-ID. The definition of gender effectively contained within the Act is vague and self-referential and allows for no objective measure of one’s sex beyond one’s in-the-moment self-identification. By defining gender identity vaguely and circularly without requiring verification or formal status change, gender (as sex) is determined on the basis of a say-so (“I identify as a woman/feminine/non-binary”). The result is that any predatory male can at any time gain access to (previously) opposite-sex provisions on the basis of self-ID.
For example, an adult male rapist incarcerated for sexually assaulting women will be able to gain access to the women’s prison simply by stating, ‘I identify as a woman’—whether he does so or not, and the Equality Act would require that said male be treated in every way as if he were female, including housing in the women’s estate as well as strip searches and pat downs by a female officers. In addition to being absurd, this arguably violates international standards for the treatment of prisoners requiring sex separation. The impact of this legislation on prisons, and other spaces like hospital wards, shelters, and rehabs, deserves particular scrutiny given that people often do not have the option to leave, and females residing in such places are often vulnerable with extensive physical and sexual victimization histories.
Some trans scholar-activists have dismissed concerns about female safety and well-being posed by gender self-ID as transphobia and ‘trans panic’; that is, fanciful, unfounded worry about ‘transwomen as deviant predators’. However, this critique is misguided and wrong. Misguided because the concern is not about transwomen, it is about predatory males. And, wrong because these concerns aren’t fanciful. In fact, the very prison scenario discussed above played out in England in 2018. Karen White, a born male incarcerated for sexually assaulting women, self-identified as a woman and gained housing in the women’s estate based on England’s existing guidelines, which have since been changed in light of negative events. While there, White sexually assaulted at least two incarcerated women, charges for which White was later convicted. Even after this incident, the Equality Act would mandate that White still be housed in the women’s estate because gender self-ID would supersede sex without exception.
Although the Karen White incident is particularly egregious, it is not a lone aberration, nor should we expect it to be, as predatory males will go to extraordinary lengths to victimize females. Given the choice to be housed with dangerous men or with women, how many men who prey on women would self-ID as women? We have no way of knowing, and no policy research has been undertaken to assess potential effects and their impact, but the number is almost certainly not zero. When the bar for access to female provisions is merely saying ‘I identify as a woman’, are we really supposed to think that predatory men (or men who would rather not spend years in men’s prisons) won’t opt into the women’s prison? If you don’t think that, what wonderfully naïve world do you live in? And, this from the same society that requires 50-year-old adults to show government ID proving they are over 21 to purchase wine or tobacco. Really?…
…..
In the blink of a historical eye, we find ourselves in a moment where among a large swath of the population including much of academia and the left, discussing sex-based and gender-identity-based rights is transphobic and verboten. Legislation such as the Equality Act (and Bill C-6 in Canada) are implicitly predicated on the idea that there is no morally valid manner in which to weigh the risks of insincere gender declarations because the very act of scrutiny is inherently hateful and bigoted.
This view, which would have been seen as extreme only a few years ago, is now held—or at least publicly signaled—by much of academia, journalism, and even many in the Democratic Party. In these circles, discussing the reality of sex in common-sense terms that most ordinary people understand and appreciate is enough to attract allegations of transphobia (see, e.g., the response to JK Rowling), which can justify—in many minds—attempts at cancellation, threats of violence, and cruel and abusive language ‘in the name of kindness and tolerance’.
The result of this state of affairs is a an ‘Equality Act’ that eliminates sex-based rights in favor of gender-identity self-ID-based rights, with little public discussion and even less understanding. During House discussions, most Republicans panned “the deep flaws” in the bill, describing the “so-called Equality Act” as the ‘‘Forfeiting-Women’s-Rights Act and noting that this is a bill ‘the authors don’t even seem to understand.’
For their part, Democrats hailed the Equality Act as “quite literally a life-saving bill that addresses some of the fundamental inequalities that still exist in America” and as “landmark legislation” that “continues our march towards justice”.[vii] In current form, the Equality Act is no doubt landmark, but it does not continue our march toward justice. When the rights of two protected groups clash, we must work to balance rights and safety, a balance that the Equality Act fails to achieve. Sex differences exist, matter in some contexts, and should be recognized. In fact, equality depends on it.
Two more links for you.
First, Graham Linehan provides another depressing set of links related to the current War on Women.
Let’s summarize: women being attacked by trans activists at demonstrations centered on women’s safety. A trans-identified male being longlisted for a UK women’s literature prize. British universities banning sex-specific language (like “mother” and “father,” – the usual) and demanding RightThink from a student feminist group that has been determined to stay woman-only.
The usual.
Secondly, you might find this video interesting.
She speaks to the suppression of free and data-driven discussion on these issues, and also to the core matter of self-identity. So if you want to get up to speed on that with an Australian accent, do give a listen:
“….they want to make an exception for any man willing to claim a feminine identity…and then it’s seen as transphobic to ask any questions about those men in particular. ….you just say that you believe that your sex is such-and-so and then you pay a nominal fee and that’s it…we’re really talking about making all women-only spaces de facto mixed sex.”
Charlotte was Both 