Earlier this year, I was on a college visit with my daughter when I found myself having to ask if, by sending her there, she might have to share a dorm with a “transgender” biological male.
What stayed with me was the fact that I had to ask about it at all. Standing there awkwardly among the other parents with my daughter, I realized how far-reaching radical gender ideology has become in our country, and how deeply it is now embedded in the education system.
And it’s exactly why Missouri HB 2536 needs immediate action in the Senate.
For years, Americans have been told not to worry about “small” changes to long-standing norms surrounding women’s private spaces. We were told gender-neutral bathrooms were no big deal.
Women were patted on the head and told our concerns about privacy were silly and overblown. We have been made to feel that acknowledging our own biological reality is somehow discriminatory or intolerant.
We know that the “small” changes were never small. They were an intentional erasure of what it means to be a woman.
If Missourians think this debate is isolated to states like California, they should pay attention to what recently happened at Kansas City International Airport.
Just a few weeks ago, a man was accused of secretly filming women inside the airport’s gender-neutral restrooms, with investigators believing at least 66 women may have had their privacy violated.
The alleged criminal isn’t the only one responsible for this invasive violation. Permissive legal structures that expose women to sexual predators were put in place by lawmakers who ignore the fact that women have private spaces for good reason. And this is a warning Missouri cannot afford to ignore.
Thankfully, the Missouri House of Representatives just passed legislation aimed at preventing these kinds of invasions of privacy from happening again. HB 2536 would require public schools, colleges, correctional facilities, and other public institutions to maintain separate restrooms, changing rooms, and sleeping quarters for biological males and females. It would also preserve protections for fairness in women’s sports.
Now the future of women’s and girls’ privacy and protection is in the hands of the Missouri Senate.
Democratic senators and gender activists will undoubtedly try to reduce this bill to political slogans or caricatures of hysterical, bigoted women, but Missourians need to understand exactly what is at stake.
Parents should not have to question whether their daughters will be sharing intimate spaces with men, and young women should not be made to feel unreasonable for protecting their privacy.
HB 2536 is a commonsense bill, and it must be passed to restore clarity where gender ideology has blurred the lines. It is unacceptable for lawmakers to shy away from acknowledging biological reality simply because doing so has become some kind of sick political football.
The truth is that women’s rights and protections are being eroded, one “inclusive” change at a time, until suddenly what once seemed unimaginable becomes reality.
