Like many bills during the 2024 legislative sessions, State Rep. Susan DuBose's (R-Hoover) "What is a Woman" Act defining "male" and "female" failed to get a floor vote due to gambling interests eating up time. She said she plans to refile it next session, but this time, she won't be so nice.
"I think I was maybe too nice last year. I am not going to be that nice this year when I come forward with this legislation," DuBose told host Greg Davis on "Priority Talk Radio" Wednesday.
"I will be tougher. And I will say you do not have to perpetuate a lie," she continued. "Don't make me call you by a pronoun that I know is incorrect. I don't have to do that, and I'm not going to do it. I'm going to stand up for people so they don't have to tell a lie. I don't want people in the state of Alabama to be forced to tell a lie."
DuBose said she would include an amendment to the bill that specifically protected minors in overnight accommodations involving state entities, citing a recent incident at Space Camp in Huntsville where a male claiming to be a female had access to girl dorms and bathrooms.
It's that kind of safety issue, and the Biden administration's changes to Title IX, which DuBose said made it vital for Alabama to get something into law clearly defining sex.
"We need to have male and female properly defined. Imagine that. We used to know what a male and female were," she said. "… If you can't define what a woman is or a female is, then you can't protect the rights that females deserve."
Though she feels confident Biden's changes to Title IX will ultimately be overturned in court, she plans to speak along with Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall at two town halls this summer to inform parents what their students might be facing next school year.
"We do have some very good public schools, but if their parents feel like their kids are not in a safe environment, their girls are not in a safe environment and they're continuing being indoctrinated, that will be what makes a parent pull a child out," she said. "…They can be perfectly fine with the education, but it's the indoctrination that will drive a parent out of a public school."
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