CHEYENNE – A new effort to define gender in Wyoming state law will continue during next year’s legislative session as Rep.-elect Jayme Lien, R-Casper, sponsors the “What is a Woman Act” bill for the general session.
Elect Jayme Lien, R-Casper
Elect Jayme Lien, R-Casper
The bill first emerged nearly a year ago, when Rep. Jeanette Ward, R-Casper, sponsored it for the 2024 budget session. However, the bill was short-lived after failing to pass the necessary two-thirds preliminary vote in the House. House of Representatives.
In an email, Lien told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle that she asked Ward, who lost her re-election campaign this year, if she could carry the bill in her place.
“Because I know how important it is to identify men and women in the law… I am honored to continue this in the 2025 session to give the Legislature the opportunity to codify into law what constitutes a woman is,” Lien wrote.
House Bill 32, the proposed What is a Woman Act, which has 12 cosponsors plus Lien, defines “man,” “woman,” “male,” “female,” “father” and “mother” based on biological terms. The freshman lawmaker said an issue that repeatedly came to her mind on the campaign trail was the protection of private spaces in Wyoming, such as domestic violence shelters, locker rooms, restrooms “and other areas where safety or privacy is important for both women and men.”
“The goal is to protect the health, safety and privacy of all Wyoming residents,” Lien said.
There are at least two other bills related to “protecting feminine spaces” that are expected to be introduced before the 2025 general session. Rep. Martha Lawley, R-Worland, announced in a November op-ed that she would introduce a bill that would protect women-only spaces and another bill that would ban transgender athletes from competing on K-12 schools and collegiate sports teams. The latter has been designated as House Bill 60.
Rep. Martha Lawley, R-Worland
Rep. Martha Lawley, R-Worland
Lawley told WTE that her intention was not to exclude transgender people, but rather to find a balance between protecting biological women and creating alternative avenues for the transgender community.
“This is not about a statement against the transgender movement,” Lawley said in an earlier interview. “The goal is not to make a point. It really tries to solve real problems.”
Background
When Ward first introduced her “What is a Woman Act” bill in 2024, the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decided a case in which six sororities alleged that their parent organization, Kappa Kappa Gamma, had violated its own rules by conducting its first to allow openly transgender member to join the University of Wyoming chapter.
The case was appealed after it was dismissed last August by U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson, who said KKG’s ability to define “woman” is a “fundamental right as a private, volunteer organization — and a right that this Court is not allowed to intrude.’
The 10th Circuit ultimately dismissed the case in May for lack of jurisdiction over the subject.
Rep. Jeanette Ward, R-Casper
Rep. Jeanette Ward, R-Casper
Last year, Ward told WTE that “it is clear that some regulatory guidance is needed regarding this very basic biological fact.”
“Naysayers will argue that this bill is unnecessary and that it is in line with a ‘national agenda’. Unfortunately, this bill is necessary in Wyoming,” Ward said in a recent email to WTE. “A biological male has driven women out of their fraternity at the University of Wyoming. Wyoming high school girls are forced to share their spaces with boys, and I know this from firsthand accounts. Female prisoners are at risk of being housed with men.”
Ward said she expects the What is a Woman Act to “easily” pass the Wyoming House of Representatives. After the general election, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, a group of hardline Republicans, gained control of the House of Representatives. The group has advocated against issues such as gender-affirming care and allowing transgender participation on sports teams.
In November, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus applauded the UW volleyball team’s decision to withdraw from its match against San Jose State University, which reportedly has a transgender team member. Ward, an outspoken member of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, questioned whether the governor will sign this bill into law if it passes the Legislature.
“I will be watching closely to inform the public which Senators (and Representatives) value women’s privacy and safety,” Ward said. “But what is the governor going to do? Should the Legislature override his veto?”
‘Waste’ of time, money
Sara Burlingame, executive director of Wyoming Equality, criticized Lien’s bill as “a waste of taxpayers’ time and money.”
“Budget, budget, budget, budget,” Burlingame said in a text message to WTE. “They should focus on bread-and-butter issues and not on their fundraising disguised as a policy tactic. Growing government big enough to tell us how to be the right kind of woman is more culture war nonsense.”
Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, reflected a similar sentiment in his criticism of the bill, saying there are other, more pressing issues that lawmakers should focus on, such as the state’s growing pregnancy deserts.
Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson
Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson
“We have an OB-GYN desert,” Yin said. “Freedom Caucus didn’t want to do anything about it, and again, they’re doing nothing about it – instead they’re trying to create more controversy than solve problems.”
He said there was once a time when some states defined the symbol pi as exactly four, “but there is a good reason why states are not dictionaries.”
“This is just another attempt to not solve any real problems and just create social controversy,” Yin said. “Because they don’t actually want to focus on real issues in the state of Wyoming.”
Antonio Serrano, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Wyoming Advocacy, said this bill limits how Wyoming residents identify themselves. This type of legislation tells them “that there is something wrong with who they are” and “would have a detrimental impact on the ability of trans women and men to live authentically.”
Serrano, Antonio (2020, ACLU)
Antonio Serrano
“The fact that this bill is here for a second year is disappointing. Voters from all sides of the political spectrum simply want our lawmakers to get good things done for them, not stoke the ‘culture wars’ at the expense of our civil rights,” Serrano said. “It is time for our legislators to mind their own business and focus on state affairs.”
The 2025 general session starts on January 14.
