A state representative in Jacksonville, Florida, has introduced new legislation that he is referring to as the “What Is a Woman Act.”
The bill, according to State Representative Dean Black (R-Yulee), aims to define “sex” in state statute by tying it to a person’s chromosomes, hormones, and genitalia at birth.
“Think of locker rooms and sports. A small group of people who are extreme propagandists should not be able to blur those lines,” Black said. “There are many things where the gender matters and it should matter.”
However, Carlos Guillermo Smith of Equality Florida argued that the act would have the effect of outlawing transgender people by preventing them from identifying as their true selves.
According to Smith, the bill is “mean-spirited and designed to jerk transgender people out of public life and force them to leave the State of Florida completely.”
To comply with the new definition, the bill also mandates that people release the sex information on their driver’s licenses.
Moreover, it would impose new requirements on health insurance providers who provide transgender medical care coverage as well as de-transition costs.
“It’s very unfortunate for those people, and we don’t want them left without care,” Black said. “Because many people who have transgender surgery later have regrets and then need to go in and at great expense try to reverse what they’ve done to themselves.”
Recent studies, Smith countered, show that trans people’s post-surgical regret rates can be as low as 1% or less.
However, Smith argued that there is a requirement for providers to handle what Smith refers to as conversion therapy, which is even more significant than the de-transition coverage requirement.
Which, according to Smith, is a dishonest rejected process that tries to persuade transgender people that they are not transgendered.
The treatment will actually begin on Tuesday.
The policy has not yet been submitted to the Senate and still has a long way to go.
