A Woman Defined

In the US, Kansas has become the first state to pass a bill that defines "woman" as someone who is biologically born female in a move to preserve single-sex areas such as public restrooms, school sports, prisons and shelters. 

 

Legislators voted in favor of the Women's Bill of Rights on February 23, 2023 which has already sparked fierce backlash from the Kansas Senate Democrats who said it was "equally offensive" to trans and cisgender women. 

 

“This is part of a national push to put biologically essentialist language in statute so that legislators have [a] basis to ban trans people from public spaces”, Kansas Senate Democrats said in a statement on Twitter. 

 

The bill defines a female as someone "whose biological reproductive system is developed to produce ova" while "male" refers to anyone whose reproductive system "is developed to fertilize the ova of a female". 

 

Senators voted 26-10 to approve the bill though it received no Democratic support. It had already been vetoed by Democratic Governor Laura Kelly (left) who had quashed two previous proposals. 

 

The issue of what a "woman" is has been the center of a fiery culture war in the US, with trans activists arguing its definition should be inclusive of people who were born male but later identify as female. 

 

Last year Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson sparked ridicule when she answered the question by saying "I am not a biologist". 

 

Republican Senator Renee Ericksson (right), who spearheaded the bill, told the Washington Times: “What this does is simply codify in the law the definition of sex. It simply says that in existing statute or law, where there is a definition of sex, it means biological male and female as determined at birth. That’s very factual, it’s very objective”.