Majority of bills related to gender identity fail introduction, three remain

As the Wyoming Legislature’s budget session began, lawmakers had at least 10 bills to consider related to transgender people, gender-affirming care, pronouns, obscenity and school programming. 

As the week ended, only three measures remained. 

The rest failed to receive enough votes for formal introduction, a higher bar because non-budget bills require a supermajority.

The fact that legislation like House Bill 50 – What is a woman act failed to garner enough votes may be a sign of lawmaker pragmatism and a focus on the budget, said Wyoming Equality’s Executive Director Sara Burlingame. But perhaps it was something else, too, she added. 

“I’m not sure if this is true or not,” she said, “but I think it’s possible that people have grown really fatigued of hearing people be really hysterical about what’s in other people’s pants.”

The Senate was the only chamber to formally introduce bills that could still affect trans Wyomingites this year — in part because of disagreements between factions of House Republicans. The first reading of the budget bill also went late into the evening in the lower chamber Friday, leaving limited time to introduce additional legislation before a key deadline.

The first gender-based bill to achieve introduction and head to committee was Senate File 94 – An act regarding compelled speech and state employers. Mirroring bills and laws in many other states, Sen. Lynn Hutchings (R-Cheyenne) said she’s sponsoring this constituent-requested legislation to protect state employees from repercussions if they misgender someone.

That is, the state wouldn’t be able to “compel or require an employee to refer to another employee using that employee’s preferred pronouns,” under threat of adverse actions, to maintain employment, or to secure a contract, grant, license or other benefit. 

Those still required to use a coworker’s preferred pronouns can sue under this bill.

Burlingame said she fears the legislation could enable harassment by those who intentionally misgender coworkers because of their looks. She recalled an incident with a female state employee.

“She worked with a man who wouldn’t use female pronouns for her and referred to her as male. She wasn’t,” Burlingame said. “But she was able to go to HR and get it resolved. Because in the state of Wyoming, we believe in decency and good manners and people aren’t allowed to mock you or deride you for your appearance or how you present yourself.”

Old and new

Two other bills headed to committee hearings are Senate File 98 – Statute of limitations-medical procedures on minors and Senate File 99 – Chloe’s law-children gender change prohibition, both sponsored by Sen. Anthony Bouchard (R-Cheyenne).

Senate File 98 allows minors who received “gender transition services” to sue a doctor over that treatment until the age of 21. 

“It just includes the hormones, puberty blockers, surgeries — all of it,” Bouchard said Friday.

Noting someone who had surgery while still a minor and regretted it, Bouchard said, “this is happening all over the country where there’s just two years that they can actually come back and say, ‘whoa wait a minute, this doctor did this to me.’”

Studies show that situations like what Bouchard described are exceedingly rare. Less than 1% of people who undergo gender-affirming surgeries regret it, according to a study of nearly 8,000 teens and adults who underwent these procedures. 

Regardless, there is no evidence that gender reassignment surgeries are performed on minors in Wyoming. 

Senate File 99 is a rerun of a bill that failed during the general session last year, minus a section about health insurance. Named after a woman who underwent a mastectomy as a child in California and later regretted it, Bouchard has championed the legislation both years.

“It has teeth in it,” Bouchard said. “[The bill] says you can’t do it in Wyoming, you can’t change the sex of a minor.”

That includes using surgeries, hormones or puberty blockers. 

Opponents of last year’s bill — like Wyoming Medical Society Executive Director Sheila Bush — argued it demonized doctors who don’t use surgeries but in rare circumstances do use medications like puberty blockers “to give kids more time.”

“I think what we have with this bill is a sad example of when politics overcomes good policy,” Bush told the Senate Labor, Health and Social Services Committee last February. “Good policy might have looked like working together and crafting a bill that maybe outlawed the procedures and surgeries.”

There are exceptions in the bill, including for genetic sex development disorders and abnormally early puberty, but some of those testifying last year feared there weren’t enough protections, and that parents of disabled children could be affected. 

Meantime, a federal judge in Idaho blocked enforcement of a similar law in that state last year, citing violations of the Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. 

As WyoFile reported last year, trans people have the highest rates of suicide among any identified group, according to research and a national survey from 2015. Meanwhile, researchers have found worse mental health and double the rate of suicidal thoughts and attempts among youth who don’t receive gender-affirming care when compared to youth who do.

Numerous medical groups back the use of gender-affirming care for minors. They include: the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society, among others.

Wyoming is home to one of the highest suicide rates in the nation, though rates have been falling. 

Failed introduction

Early in the session’s first week, two bills focused on gender and transitioning didn’t receive enough votes to be introduced. That included House Bill 50 – What is a woman act and House Bill 63 – Sex and gender changes for children-prohibited.

House Bill 50, sponsored by Wyoming Freedom Caucus member Rep. Jeanette Ward (R-Casper), aimed to define females and males based on what their “reproductive system was developed to produce” and their chromosomes, with some medical exemptions. 

It specified how the definitions would apply to spaces denoted for females or males in athletics, detention facilities, domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, locker rooms, restrooms “and other areas where safety or privacy are implicated.”

“It gives dignity to womanhood by protecting it,” Ward said on the House floor, later referencing a private sorority’s decision to accept a transgender University of Wyoming student into their group. 

A lawsuit over that sorority’s decision was dismissed at the district court level in August, but plaintiffs have appealed. 

House Bill 50 failed introduction 37-24, with 20 Republicans voting against it.

House Bill 63, on the other hand, didn’t go far enough, according to the Freedom Caucus. It would have banned surgeries or procedures altering the sex of — or sterilizing — minors.

“There aren’t any gender reassignment surgeries taking place currently [in Wyoming], but my feeling is that a child under the age of 18 is developing emotionally, mentally and physically, and really … should be prohibited from making those types of decisions that can have such long-term impact on their life,” Rep. Lloyd Larsen (R-Lander) said Wednesday on the House floor. 

But Rep. Sarah Penn (R-Lander) argued “this bill does not go nearly far enough,” pointing to the omission of hormones and medications from the bill.

“There’s other vehicles that are much better, much more encompassing to actually protect our children, and I would urge no vote on this,” she said. 

That bill failed introduction 33-28. 

Bill breakdown

There are other bills this session that could have disproportionately affected transgender people and the larger LGBTQ+ community in Wyoming — but failed to receive enough votes for introduction. These are some WyoFile identified as of Friday.

House Bill 61 – Fiscal accountability and transparency in education: Sponsored by Rep. Penn, this bill would have required school districts to submit exhaustive annual reports on how much they spent to “implement, deliver or support” programs that directly — or indirectly — address social issues, political or social activism, and diversity, equity or inclusion. 

Districts would also need parental or guardian permission for kids to participate in classes or training involving those programs. Others in the district would be allowed to opt out.

The bill’s definitions of the programs include topics that polarize society, school-endorsed activity meant to affect or prevent change in government policy, and policies that promote “differential or preferential treatment of individuals or classifies such individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, gender identity or sexual orientation.”

House Bill 68 – Obscenity-impartial conformance: This short bill, sponsored by Rep. Ben Hornok (R-Cheyenne), would have eliminated a statutory exemption that allows people within “bona fide” schools, colleges, universities, museums or public libraries to have or disseminate what the state considers to be “obscene material.”

Burlingame said legislation aimed at theoretical obscenities has targeted trans people in other states.

“The obscenity [bills] we definitely include in our ‘hostile to trans folks’ category, just because that’s how we’ve seen it implemented in other states,” she said. “The existence of a trans person is what’s being weaponized and called obscene.”

House Bill 88 – Public display of obscene material: Rep. Pepper Ottman (R-Riverton) sponsored this bill, which would have made it a misdemeanor to “publicly communicate” obscene material. The legislation defines that phrase to mean: “[D]isplay, post, exhibit, give away or vocalize material in such a way that the material may be readily and distinctly perceived by the public at large by normal unaided vision or hearing.”

House Bill 136 – Gender identity-definition repeal: Sponsored by Rep. Hornok, HB 136 sought to repeal the definition of gender identity from the education section of state statutes. 

That definition is: “as stated in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. A person’s gender identity can be shown by providing evidence, including but not limited to medical history, care or treatment of the gender identity, consistent and uniform assertion of the gender identity or the evidence that the gender identity is sincerely held, part of a person’s core identity and not being asserted for an improper purpose.”

House Bill 156 – Best interests of a child-gender affirming treatments: Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams (R-Cody) sponsored this bill.

It would have added specific language to several parts of Wyoming statute stating: “To the extent applicable, in determining the best interests of the child under this article, there shall be a conclusive presumption that it is not in the best interests of the child to undergo any gender transition or gender reassignment procedures.”

That includes hormones and puberty-blocking medications.

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