That anti-transgender law is even worse than you think

  The Alabama Legislature rushed a bill to Gov. Kay Ivey last week. It was so important that House Republicans limited debate on the measure to 10 minutes on Wednesday. It was so urgent that Ivey signed it on Thursday.

  You would hope legislation passed so swiftly would address a major problem in the state. Like gun violence. The rural health crisis. Or the ongoing inequities in Alabama’s public schools.

  And of course, your hope would turn to dust. The legislation allows public entities to segregate men and women.

  That’s not the explicit purpose of the “What Is A Woman” Act sponsored by Sen. April Weaver (R-Alabaster). But that’s its functional effect.

  The bill takes its name from a far-right propaganda movie because our far-right lawmakers see their chief duty as marketing the work of conservative film producers.

  At first glance, the legislation is another attempt to drive transgender Alabamians out of public life. The bill requires the state to define man or woman based on whether you can produce sperm or ova; or whether you once could; or whether you might, or whether you hypothetically could.

  In one respect, it’s a bathroom bill. A transgender man assigned female at birth — someone with a beard who does not look anything like a woman — would be in legal trouble if he uses the men’s room, as Allison Montgomery of the Alabama Transgender Rights Action Coalition (ALTRAC) told Alander Rocha.

  You might see this outcome as absurd. But you lack the chromosomal insights of the Alabama Legislature. And with any luck, you also lack their capacity for cruelty.

  After cutting off gender-affirming health care and banning transgender youth from participating in the sports of the gender with which they identify, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that our state lawmakers love watching transgender people suffer. Weaver called the bill “common sense.”

  “Common sense,” in this case, means forcing a person to live with the torture of gender dysphoria and all the tragedy that can result. Alabama lawmakers keep trying to shove a world of fractal-like complexity into a binary mold. And they don’t mind that innocent people get crushed.

  But keep reading the state’s latest example of gonad-based lawmaking, and you’ll come upon Section 4 of the law.

  “Neither the state nor any political subdivision of the state shall be prohibited from establishing separate single-sex spaces or environments for males and females when biology, privacy, safety, or fairness are implicated,” it says.

  Read that paragraph again. Then read the bill in its entirety. And find me the sentence that limits this command to bathrooms.

  It’s not there. What is there is “privacy, safety, or fairness.” Terms the bill neither defines nor qualifies.

  In attacking transgender Alabamians, Ivey and the Alabama Legislature have opened the door to sex segregation.

  You may have one view of what safety means. A city official or school administrator who liked what that Dominionist preacher said about the lust young women inspire in innocent young men might have another take on it.

  Possibly you have a vision of fairness grounded in equal opportunity regardless of background. The crank on your local school board huffing X/Twitter/whatever might think it means fortifying the world’s most mediocre men from any competition.

  It sure looks like Governor Ivey and the legislature have given these men the legal tools they need to create separate paths for our children. And punish women for the high crime of occupying spaces less talented men want.

  Rep. Susan DuBose (R-Hoover), who carried the bill in the House and sponsored similar versions in the past, insisted last Wednesday that this language was meant to allow women-only dormitories, rape crisis centers, and prisons.

  But there’s nothing in state or federal law preventing the state from building women’s prisons; or colleges from building single-sex dormitories; or anyone from creating spaces to support female victims of sexual assault.

  In this vicious desire to harm a small group of people, we’re allowing governments to separate men and women on the slightest pretext.

  Transgender Americans have warned us about this for years. They told us these attacks were a prelude to a larger offensive against the LGBTQ community and women.

  And here we are.

  Alabama officials needed three years to deprive a class of Alabamians of their civil rights and access to health care. Cowardly federal judges ripped up precedent and the Constitution to give them a legal footing.

  That gave the far right an example of how to discriminate and still prevail in court. And might have encouraged them to be bolder.

  Now we have a law the Republican-controlled legislature rushed through and Ivey signed with lightning speed that will give public officials and entities an unchecked ability to decide the nature of “fairness” and “security” for men and women.

  If that means pushing women into segregated spaces, they can do so.

  Because they’re defending them, you see.

  What is a woman? Apparently it’s the next group of Alabamians our lawmakers want to erase from view.

  About the author: Brian Lyman is the editor of Alabama Reflector. He has covered Alabama politics since 2006 and has worked at the Montgomery Advertiser, the Press-Register, and The Anniston Star. A 2024 Pulitzer finalist for Commentary, his work has also won awards from the Associated Press Managing Editors, the Alabama Press Association, and the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights.

  This article was published by Alabama Reflector, which is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.