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Bill defining sex in Montana law sent to governor's desk – Daily Montanan [1]

['Blair Miller', 'More From Author', '- April']

Date: 2023-04-27  

The bill that aims to define the terms “male” and “female” in 41 sections of Montana code, which a fiscal analysis requested by Democrats earlier this session found could cost the state billions, is headed to the desk of Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte.

The Senate voted 28-22 Thursday to concur with the House’s amendments to Senate Bill 458, sponsored by Sen. Carl Glimm, R-Kila. Sens. Wendy McKamey, R-Great Falls, Dan Salomon, R-Ronan, Jason Small, R-Busby, Russ Tempel, R-Chester, Terry Vermeire, R-Anaconda, and Jeff Welborn, R-Dillon, joined all 16 Democrats in opposition.

The amendments put on the bill in the House put it in line with the language requested by the Governor’s Office to be added into another controversial bill targeting the LGBTQ+ community passed by Republicans this session, Senate Bill 99.

Glimm said Wednesday during the measure’s second reading that agreeing to the amendments keeps definitions the same across Montana code.

After hours of hearings and discussions on the bill throughout the 2023 session, Wednesday’s debate was brief. Other than Glimm’s brief introduction of the bill, Sen. Jen Gross, D-Billings, was the only other lawmaker to speak on it.

She said it was “extremely problematic” because it touches so many areas of Montana code and that the amendments did not make the bill any better than it was the first time it was sent out of the Senate.

“We are left with unworkable, unconstitutional and unscientific definitions that exclude individuals who are intersex and Montanans who are transgender,” Gross said.

In March, Democrats questioned the original fiscal note for the bill, which said it would not cost the state any money. They requested a new analysis from the Legislative Fiscal Division.

That analysis found it potentially could risk more than $7 billion in federal funding depending on how agencies implement the bill if it is signed by the governor.

Glimm said earlier this session he brought the bill in response to the enjoining of his 2021 bill by a Yellowstone County court that would have disallowed transgender Montanans from changing their gender marker on their birth certificate.

Under a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision, federal law prohibits employment discrimination based on gender identity, sexual orientation, biological sex and failure to conform with sex stereotypes, which is what the fiscal analysis found could be violated by the bill in its form at the time because the definitions relied on reproductive organs.

There was no new fiscal analysis requested after the bill was amended to state that males and females have specific chromosomes and produce sperm and eggs, respectively.

Proponents of the bill generally have argued that the measure is necessary to be put into law because a person’s sex is binary and cannot be changed when someone identifies as another gender.

Opponents, including several medical organizations and human rights groups, have sharply criticized the bill as being unconstitutional and attacking and disregarding people who are intersex and transgender.

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[1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2023/04/27/bill-defining-sex-in-montana-law-sent-to-governors-desk/

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