The Tennessee Senate’s Judiciary Committee recommended the Women’s Safety and Protection Act for passage.
This legislation would redefine the meaning and understanding of gender and identity by using “visible genital anatomy” to categorize individuals. Lawmakers said this is to protect women from “acts of abuse committed by biological men.”
The bill defines females as those whose “biological reproductive system is developed to produce ova,” and males as those whose “biological reproductive system is developed to fertilize the ova of a female.”
“’Sex’ means an individual’s biological sex, either male or female, as observed or clinically verified at birth and does not include gender identity and other subjective terms, which do not apply to this bill, and must not be used as synonyms or substitutes for sex,” the bill’s summary said.
If passed, government agencies, domestic violence shelters, correctional and juvenile detention facilities, and public schools would be affected. The legislation does not apply to people who are entering the spaces for medical assistance, custodial maintenance, or rendering aid.
LGBTQ+ advocates have condemned the bill. The Tennessee Equality Project (TEP) cited the bill in December in a policy brief, saying it could undermine protections for trans inmates.
“[The act] dismisses intersex and nonbinary persons entirely,” the brief said. “The Act specifically forces prisons to restrict incarcerated trans women and girls to men’s housing, without exception for their health and safety.”
A representative named Nino from a group called Rural Rainbows, testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee prior to the vote on the bill on Tuesday.
Nino said they navigated the world for 35 years as one of the girls and women the bill seeks to protect. They’ve lived as a transgender man for the last five years and said they have been navigating the same dangers as well as “new ones.”
“The so-called Women’s Safety and Protection Act will make spaces less, not more safe for women,” Nino said. “This bill also fails to protect someone like me who fits the bill’s narrow definition of woman, but does not live as one.
This bill poses significant danger for transgender women, who like all of us deserve safety and protection,”
Nino went on to say that transgender people have accessed the spaces in question without causing violence towards cisgender women.
“It is well proven that girls and women are almost always assaulted by cisgender men they already know — not by transgender strangers in bathrooms or anywhere else,” Nino said. “This is almost a non-existent problem.”
They ended their testimony by expressing their concern for transgender inmates.
The bill passed with seven ayes, one naye, and one present-not-voting.