19 Wyoming Republicans block bill to legally define 'man' and 'woman'

A proposed Wyoming House Bill that would have legally defined the terms "female" and "male" based on scientific biological definitions was struck down on Thursday after 19 Republicans voted against it.

Introduced by Republican Rep. Jeanette Ward, House Bill 50, also known as the "What is a Woman Act," would have defined people based on the sex in which they were born and would have banned people from using public accommodations, such as restrooms, different from their birth sex.

Additionally, the bill would have required any school district and state agency, department, office, or other political subdivision that collects vital statistics as a means of gathering information related to crime, public health, and economic status, to define an individual as male or female consistent with the persons sex at birth.

The bill had 15 Republican co-sponsors, yet it still failed to pass.

The 19 state House Republicans who voted against the bill refused to enact the following scientific definitions into law:

"The terms 'woman' and 'girl' refer to human females, and the terms 'man' and 'boy' refer to human males, 'mother' means a parent of the female sex, 'father' means a parent of the male sex, 'female' means a person whose biological reproductive system is developed to produce ova and/or who exhibits XX chromosomes and does not exhibit a Y chromosome, and 'male' means a person whose biological reproductive system is developed to fertilize the ova of a female and/or who exhibits XY chromosomes or exhibits a Y chromosome."

While introducing the bill, Rep. Jeanette Ward said the "What is a Woman Act" has become "necessary because a biological male has pushed Wyoming women from their Wyoming sorority in our Wyoming University."

Last year, members of the Kappa Kappa Gamma (KKG) sorority at the University of Wyoming filed a lawsuit after the organization allowed a 260-pound six-foot-two trans-identified male to move into the house with female members after changing the definition of a woman. The KKG sorority members did not feel safe living with a male, which is why they filed the lawsuit.

Furthermore, Ward stated during the hearing that "some may argue that this bill may result in loss of federal dollars, but we cannot allow ourselves to be radicalized by the dependence on federal funds that require us to allow men in Wyoming elementary school bathrooms."