Today, the Georgia State House voted to pass House Bill 267, an expansive anti-transgender bill.
HB 267 would do many things: ban transgender participation in sports at all ages, ban transgender youth from using bathrooms, locker rooms, or other gender-specific school facilities that align with their gender, and redefine “sex” across the Georgia State Code to be based only on sex at birth and reproductive capacity. This could have far-reaching consequences for many Georgians.
Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality, shared the following statement in response:
“We are extremely disappointed by the House’s passage of HB 267 today, an expansive anti-transgender bill which has been misleadingly called only a transgender sports ban.
HB 267 would not only ban transgender participation in sports of all ages, but it also would ban transgender youth from using bathrooms which align with their gender, in addition to narrowly redefining sex based solely on one’s sex at birth and reproductive capacity across 45 sections of Georgia law. This especially could have far-reaching consequences for all women and girls.
We know what a hard day this is, especially for members of the transgender community. Transgender people have always and will always exist. No piece of legislation can erase that.
We are proud of how hard people have fought this bill over the last several weeks. We also appreciate the heartfelt testimony of House Democrats who spoke against this harmful bill: Leader Carolyn Hugley, Rep. Park Cannon, Rep. Karla Drenner, Rep. Imani Barnes, Rep. Karen Lupton, Rep. Jasmine Clark, and Rep. Anne Allen Westbrook.
It was meaningful to have so many women leaders stand and denounce passing this discriminatory bill under the guise of ‘protecting women.’ We understand that bathroom and sports restrictions are an invitation for abuse and harassment, and it makes people less safe altogether. Government does not belong in our children’s restrooms.
The bill will now head to the Senate for consideration, but the fight is not over. We remain committed to fighting all anti-LGBTQ and anti-transgender legislation in the Georgia General Assembly.”
ABOUT
Founded in 1995, Georgia Equality is the state’s largest advocacy organization working to advance fairness, safety and opportunity for Georgia’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and allied communities.
C’mon, Citizen, this is not a straight news article (pun intended), and should not be labeled as such. You reprinted verbatim the opinion of Jeff Graham, the director of an LGBTQ advocacy group, with nothing from an opposing point of view.
And HB267 is not an “anti-trans” bill, but a bill re-stating that females do not have to give up privacy, safety and opportunities to a few males with no legitimate claim to those things. Feminists, where are you?
The position taken by Mr Graham is a denial of science and common sense. He believes gender is something different than biological sex, and changeable at a whim too. He might as well add “furries” into the mix.
The public benefit of keeping men and boys out of girls’ and women’s restrooms, locker rooms, sports and prisons is far greater than that of a small group of men who want special rights for their own decisions. By the way, how many genders with their own pronouns are we up to now? 52? 85?
Hopefully HB267 will also prohibit doctors from treating a psychological issue with surgical or hormone “gender affirming care” that does nothing to address a physical health problem. If we could also stop “educators” from grooming children into thinking there are more than two sexes, all the better.
To the beer-bellied, balding adult dude named Bubba who wants to cross-dress and play “look at me, I’m a girl” in your own spaces, I say go for it. You do you.
But the line has to be re-drawn. It IS about protecting our wives, daughters and granddaughters from trans people’s demand for special access to their private areas and sports, and more.
It’s disappointing that we need an HB267 to correct the excesses of the last few years, where woke nonsense has been treated seriously by progressives. For thousands of years, somehow, we understood the science that there are two different, but compatible, sexes. Most times together, sometimes not.
Unfortunately, the LGBTQ folks and their progressive allies have made HB267 necessary. We need our representatives to prohibit little Johnny and Bubba et al from girls’ and women’s spaces and sports.