Montana bill defining ‘sex’ as binary becomes law
SB 458 is part of a slate of 2023 policies vocally opposed by LGBTQ+ civil rights groups and Democrats for what they cast as blatant discrimination against transgender people and those with intersex conditions. Critics, including transgender lawmakers Rep. SJ Howell and Rep. Zooey Zephyr, both Democrats from Missoula, said the bill would legally misdefine them and effectively write them out of state law.
“The reality is that there are people who are out living their lives, Montanans, our friends and community members, who who do not fit into these definitions just because of their medical and biological reality,” said Howell, who is transgender nonbinary, during an April House floor debate. “… Imagine my dismay at discovering that a state like Montana, my state, my home, says the government knows better. There’s two boxes, you got to choose, end of story.”
Dr. Erin Grantham, a pediatric urologist in Billings, said on Monday that the binary definition of sex in SB 458 “doesn’t make sense” and presents significant problems for intersex and transgender people, the medical community and various parts of state government tasked with enforcing the law.
“If you start with the assertion that there are exactly two sexes, which is the literature of the bill, that’s an inaccurate statement,” Grantham said. The law’s attempt to separate sex from gender and ignore a person’s psychology, she continued, is also problematic and unscientific. “You can legislate whatever you want. You can say that gravity only applies when you’re at sea level, but that doesn’t change the fact that there’s gravity when we walk up a hill.”
Grantham said Montana medical professionals and residents would benefit from a third “sex” option on birth certificates and a designation besides male or female on other identification documents. While intersex people make up roughly 1% of the population, passing legislation that boxes them out of law “is an absolutely terrible way to run a society,” Grantham said.