Alabama lawmakers did not pass legislation that would define men and women based on their biological sex, put LGBTQ+ advocates, such as ACLU of Alabama, are gearing up for the bill’s possible return next legislative session.
HB405 was introduced in late April and dubbed the “What is a Woman” Act. It passed the Alabama House Committee on Health the following month and was read twice in its house of origin. But the last day of Alabama’s legislative session was on June 6, and the bill was never formally signed and made into law.
If passed, HB405 would have formally defined terms including man, woman, boy, girl, father, mother, male, female and sex. These definitions would be based on one’s biological sex determined at birth. This means that Alabamians would be defined as man or woman according to their reproductive organs.
The definitions established in HB405 would apply to all of Alabama’s existing legislation, amending the Code of Alabama 1975.
Dillon Nettles is a policy director with ACLU of Alabama. He said the bill would limit how Alabamians can identify themselves, particularly Alabama’s transgender and nonbinary communities.
“We’re attempting to use these draconian and, frankly, not even the most medically contemporary language,” he said. “For this bill to establish the stringent assertion of a man or woman completely cuts trans people out of the picture. It’s letting them know that there’s something wrong with who they are.”
The bill was sponsored by Republican Rep. Susan DuBose. Alabama Political Reporter reports that DuBose believes the bill will protect women, promote single sex private spaces and preserve laws that prevent sexual discrimination.
But Nettles said the bill misses the mark. “They try to pose it as if this is about protecting and saving women,” he said. “These are the same lawmakers who have just in recent years passed sweeping bans on reproductive freedom [and] on abortion access. It’s really incongruent with the language that we’ve been hearing from them.”
In addition to defining who is a man and a woman, HB405 would also require vital statistics records to identify citizens as male or female at birth. Existing definitions of men and women in state law would be revised to fit the new style.
Though HB405 did not pass the 2023 legislative session, Nettles said there is always the possibility it could return next year.
“I believe [it] will come back, unfortunately,” he said. “These anti-LGBTQ+ attacks really art part of a rolling effort. The obsession our lawmakers have taken in recent years with particularly trans people, I expect will continue. I expect, of course, at the ACLU we will continue to fight them.”
One bill restricting transgender people that was signed into law was House Bill 261. The proposal revises previous legislation that restricts male sports to biological males and female sports to biological females in public K-12 schools. These restrictions now extend to two- and four-year universities. It was signed into law by Governor Kay Ivey on May 30.
