WDI USA’s State Legislative Advocacy (SLA) team, coordinated by Lauren Levey, has been busy this past legislative session reading, researching, and evaluating bills; composing written testimony; and providing witnesses to give live and written testimony in support of or in opposition to various state bills. Here’s some numerical breakdown of our work this legislative session:
- WDI written testimony was submitted for a total of 47 state bills.
- 21 additional bills were evaluated but not ultimately acted upon.
- 16 different women sent in written testimony or testified live on behalf of WDI USA.
WDI USA President Kara Dansky wrote a model bill called the SAFE Act for the purpose of prohibiting medical procedures on children intended to disguise their sex. A model bill is a template to demonstrate to lawmakers what an effective bill with a particular purpose would look like. In this case, lawmakers in several states had introduced bills intended to ban the treatment of children with drugs and surgeries to disguise their sex, but all contained language that validated “gender identity.” Our model bill was written to achieve the same end using only reality-based language. Read the Model SAFE Act here.
Another highlight of the year was our work in Pennsylvania, where WDI signatories sent in written testimony for a pair of good sports bills [H.B. 972 and S.B. 1191]. This was followed up by further written testimony and two different phone campaigns for Pennsylvania signatories to call in their support. On June 7, a rally was held in Harrisburg, PA, in support of the bills, which WDI signatories and volunteers attended. The SLA team conducted in-depth research on several PA Senators. Then our signatories, volunteers, and WDI USA Board President Kara Dansky met with Democratic Senators or their staff, and gave each one a copy of Kara Dansky’s book, The Abolition of Sex. The Senate bill, S.B. 1191, was voted on in the Senate the same day, and it passed! The votes in favor included one Democrat, Lisa Boscola, whose staff Kara had met with. Meanwhile, the House bill, H.B. 972, having previously passed in the House, passed in the Senate June 29. Unfortunately (but expectedly) Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf vetoed the bill and the legislature is unlikely to override the veto. Nevertheless, it is significant that we succeeded in getting a fair sports bill passed by both houses in a purple state.
We have a table summarizing all 47 bills and links to our testimonies and letters, which you can view by clicking here:
