Oklahoma Governor Signs ‘Women’s Bill Of Rights’ To Combat Gender Ideology

Oklahoma Republican Governor Kevin Stitt signed the “Women’s Bill of Rights” on Tuesday in a move that advocates called “huge” for combating gender ideology.

The “Women’s Bill of Rights,” which the governor signed by executive order, directs public schools to provide separate locker rooms and restrooms for boys and girls and state facilities like prisons or domestic shelters to provide separate facilities for men and women.

“Female” is defined in the order as “a person whose biological reproductive system is designed to produce ova” or eggs, and “male” is defined as “a person whose biological reproductive system is designed to fertilize the ova of a female.”

“Today, radical gender ideologues threaten the hard-fought progress won by women and girls in our society, and the federal government is surrendering to their demands,” the order reads, adding that there are “definitional, practical, and material” differences between the sexes.

The order said it aims to bring “clarity, certainty, and uniformity” to administrative rules to “settle the unfounded confusion surrounding such basic questions as ‘What is a woman?’”

“It’s even weird to say that we have to do this in today’s age … but to us, it’s just common sense that we have to do this to define what a woman is and protect women,” Stitt said on Fox News after signing the executive order.

“I have three daughters,” Stitt said. “My wife and I’ve been married for 25 years. I did this for them. I did it for Riley Gaines. I did it for all the young girls in the state of Oklahoma. It’s just absolutely wrong for them to be forced to change and undress in what should be a safe locker room as they’re competing.”

The governor said that anyone at a state agency who violates the order would be “removed immediately,” saying, “They’re not going to work in my administration.”

Former college swimmer Riley Gaines, who was forced to share a locker room with trans-identifying male athlete Lia Thomas, called the order “huge.” Gaines joined Stitt on Tuesday as he signed the executive order.

So honored to stand alongside Governor Stitt as he signed an Executive Order on the Women’s Bill of Rights, a law that defines sex-based terms like “woman”

Stitt is the first governor to take decisive action and safeguard women’s privacy, safety, and equal opportunities. ?????? pic.twitter.com/bZBJvxepLh

— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) August 1, 2023

“This is bigger than universities that we’re seeing in academia. It’s in corporate America, it’s in the media, the amount of emotional blackmail they put us through to keep us silent. And it was effective,” Gaines said. “They told us we wouldn’t get a job, we wouldn’t get into grad school, we would lose our friends, we would lose our scholarship. They told us that we would be murderers if we spoke out because we would be complicit in a potential death. That’s how they kept us silent. That’s why it feels as if and it seems as if I’ve been one of the few voices fighting for this.”

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Paula Scanlan, a teammate of Thomas, recently said she had nightmares after sharing a locker room with Thomas, which she described as traumatic for her as a sexual assault survivor.

Oklahoma Democrats attacked the order as an attack on transgender people.

“Once again, the Republican supermajority continues their government overreach by infringing on the rights of citizens,” said House Democratic Leader Cyndi Munson, accusing the governor of deploying “partisan, polarizing politics.”

The executive order was inspired by model legislation developed by the conservative women’s group Independent Women’s Voice.

Kansas and Tennessee have adopted similar legislation based on the model legislation.

In recent years, parents across the country have sounded the alarm about minor students using school bathrooms and locker rooms designated for classmates of the opposite biological sex. Reports of sexual assaults occurring in bathrooms shared with trans-identifying students have only heightened concerns, and parents have shown up at school board meetings to demand that bathrooms be separated by biological sex.