WASHINGTON — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Wednesday he is backing the “Women’s Bill of Rights,” a document being pushed by Republicans that calls for, among other things, a person’s sex to be defined under state and federal law as “his or her biological sex (either male or female) at birth.”
The GOP elected officials and candidates promoting the document say “gender ideologues” are trying to redefine womanhood.
“The radical left has long had trouble with telling the truth,” Paxton said in a press release. “They’ve tried to redefine the word ‘recession,’ revise American history, paint concerned parents as ‘domestic terrorists,’ and now they want to fundamentally change what it means to be a woman.”
“It’s wrong, and it’s why I’m fighting to stop their dangerous agenda that threatens women and anyone who stands up for what’s right,” he continued.
The Women’s Bill of Rights, decried by critics as anti-transgender, asserts that biological differences between women and men are “enduring” and “may, in some circumstances, warrant the creation of separate social, educational, athletic, or other spaces in order to ensure safety and/or to allow members of each sex to succeed and thrive.”
When it comes to gender, it argues, “separate is not inherently unequal,” language that invokes the monumental Supreme Court decision Brown vs. Board of Education, which held that racially segregated public and educational facilities were inherently unequal.
“There are legitimate reasons to distinguish between the sexes with respect to athletics, prisons or other detention facilities, domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, locker rooms, restrooms, and other areas where biology, safety, and/or privacy are implicated,” the document reads.
According to the Mayo Clinic, transgender individuals are those who have a gender identity that differs from the sex assigned to them at birth.
As the federal government and states have expanded transgender rights over the past decade, Republicans have pushed back. Many GOP officials and candidates across the country have made attacking gay and transgender rights a party norm this midterm season, including Paxton.
The proposal has also been introduced as its own legislation in Congress, where Republicans in both the House and Senate have signed on — among them, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
The document was created by the Independent Women’s Voice, an advocacy group that seeks to share “conservative, free market ideas and solutions with women and Independents.”
Paxton joined nine other GOP state attorneys general who’ve backed the document, including Lynn Fitch of Mississippi, Steve Marshall of Alabama, Lynn Rutledge of Arkansas, Jeff Landry of Louisiana and Sean Reyes of Utah.
Equality Texas, an LGTBQ+ rights advocacy organization, derided Paxton and the Women’s Bill of Rights.
“Paxton doesn’t think mothers should be allowed to provide health care to their trans kids, he doesn’t think trans girls should be allowed to play sports, and he doesn’t think trans women deserve basic decency and respect,” said Ricardo Martinez, CEO of Equality Texas. “A deceptively named manifesto does not erase a long and frightful track record.”
In June, Democrats in Congress introduced a “Transgender Bill of Rights” to protect and codify the rights of transgender and nonbinary people under federal law and ensure their access to medical care, shelter, safety and economic security.
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