A trio of bills affecting transgender Wyomingites and diversity programs cleared legislative hurdles in the Wyoming state House and Senate this week.
The “What is a Woman Act” would establish legal definitions for the terms “biological sex,” “man” and “woman,” and could ban trans people from accessing the bathrooms, locker rooms and other public spaces of their choice, including rape crisis centers and domestic violence shelters.
“Without an enforcement mechanism, you open up everything to being an enforcement mechanism, and then the courts will decide whether it’s legitimate or not,” said Rep. Karlee Provenza (D-Laramie) on the House floor. “Are you going to force rape victims to show their genitals to enter a domestic violence shelter, potentially when their husbands were the ones who raped them?”
Trans people are four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violence like rape and sexual assault, according to one study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jayme Lien (R-Casper), said it’s meant to protect public spaces, and that it would give state courts more information to use when adjudicating lawsuits stemming from trans people using bathrooms.
“By defining male and female, and in doing so requiring bathrooms, locker rooms and private spaces to be utilized according to sex as found on individuals’ birth certificates, this [legislation] exists within a generations-old framework of recogniz[ing] a distinction between the sexes,” said Lien.
A bill with the same name died when it failed to be introduced last session. It shares its name with a 2022 viral documentary by conservative commentator Matt Walsh that detractors say is anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-trans in nature.
DEI in higher ed and government gets another look
Another bill moving forward is a total ban on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in Wyoming’s state government and in the University of Wyoming (UW).
In May, the university announced it would close its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion after the state Legislature cut the office’s block grant by $1.5 million – the amount it took to fund UW’s DEI office. The university, adopting its own definition of DEI after the Legislature’s decision, closed its Multicultural Affairs office not long after.
“Essentially, what this bill does is it restores our state government to the colorblind approach that the Constitution originally intended,” said Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams (R-Cody), the bill’s sponsor. “The current administration sold DEI as a benign way to address inequalities, but the words for which these letters stand have been twisted really beyond all recognition.”
Student critics of the bill told Wyoming Public Radio this summer that DEI programs at UW helped them feel included. They expressed concern about the effect on the diversity of the school’s admissions.
“We’re all equal,” said Heather Martinez in August. She’s a student who’s Hispanic and who previously took advantage of one of the Multicultural Affairs office’s clubs. “I’m no better than you, you’re no better than me. But still, at the end of the day, I think it’s an important resource to have. I mean, it helped me a lot. I made a lot of connections last year, connections that I still have today.”
A similar bill to Rodriguez-Williams’ was received for introduction to the Senate but hasn’t been assigned a committee as of Jan. 17.
‘Rejection of all female transgender athletes’
Wyoming might soon prevent transgender students at UW, and in community colleges across the state, from participating in athletic competitions when their teams don’t match their sex assigned at birth.
“[The bill] just protects those biological female athletes, not only with the safety issues but with the fairness issues,” said Sen. Wendy Schuler (R-Evanston), the bill sponsor and chair of the Senate Education Committee.
Schuler said she was motivated to draft the measure after the UW volleyball team forfeited games against a rival that allegedly had a trans player.
But Schuler said she didn’t know of any trans student-athletes competing in college sports in Wyoming.
“This rejection of all transgender female athletes – it’s another form of extremism,” said Sara Burlingame, the executive director of the LGBTQ+ nonprofit Wyoming Equality.
The bill now moves to the full Senate to finish its first reading.
This reporting was made possible by a grant from the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, supporting state government coverage in the state. Wyoming Public Media and Jackson Hole Community Radio are partnering to cover state issues both on air and online.
