New 'Georgia Women's Bill of Rights' guts protections for trans women, eliminates gender identity

[useapen]

A proposed bill in the Georgia legislature would strip protections based
on sexual and gender identity, define gender for the purposes of the bill
as a person’s sex assigned at birth, and base access to public areas like
locker rooms and bathrooms upon that.

The proposed bill H.B. 1128 is entitled the Georgia Women’s Bill of
Rights, and it targets the transgender community by removing all
references to gender and gender identity from the bill, denying the trans
community basic protections from bias crimes, the use of certain public
facilities, and other legal protections.

The bill defines sex as “the biological state of being male or female in
the context of reproductive potential or capacity." It goes on to base
this determination “on the individual’s sex organs, chromosomes, naturally
occurring sex hormones, gonads, and unambiguous internal and external
genitalia present at birth, including secondary sex characteristics.”

The bill also states that “in no case is an individual’s sex determined by
stipulation or self-identification.”

The bill further removes sexual orientation and gender as criteria for
biased crime and sentencing enhancements and removes gender from reporting
requirements.

H.B. 1128 was sponsored by a group of six Republicans including five
women: Rep. Jodi Lott, Rep. Leesa Hagan, Rep. Kimberly New, Rep. Penny
Houston, Rep. Bethany Ballard, and Rep. Alan Powell.

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Critics quickly pointed out the danger of removing protection for the
LGBTQ+ community in general and the trans community specifically.

Related: Trans people continue to be murdered at extreme rates as
Republicans push transphobic laws

The bill mirrors recent legislation in Florida and elsewhere that removes
protections for the LGBTQ+ communities and penalizes the mentions of
gender identity.

In November, the Human Rights Campaign released a report detailing the
tens of transgender and gender nonconforming were killed in the previous
year, many of whom were killed because of their identity.

“The epidemic of violence against transgender and gender non-conforming
people is a national tragedy and a national embarrassment,” said Kelly
Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, at the time. “Each of
the lives taken is the result of a society that demeans and devalues
anyone who dares challenge the gender binary. In statehouses across the
nation, we’ve seen bills signed into law that ban gender-affirming
healthcare, make schools unsafe for LGBTQ+ youth, and ban transgender and
non-binary people from public bathrooms.”

https://news.yahoo.com/georgia-women-bill-rights-guts-154057735.html