House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced on Tuesday that the House of Representatives is planning to vote next week on the Equality Act.

While the Equality Act is being sold on promising good things for women, and on ending unfair treatment of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people—which almost everyone agrees are worthy and important goals—it’s poisoned with the destruction of the law’s ability to allow any accommodations for women on the basis of sex.

The Equality Act, introduced in the US House of Representatives as H.R. 5 in 2019, includes gender identity rules that have received little public focus regarding their adverse impact on sex stereotyping bans, or the danger they pose to women and children. The bill would codify the regulatory changes President Biden laid forth in his Executive Order on gender identity his first day in office.

In several places in this bill, it directs the term “sex” in federal civil rights law to be replaced with the term, “sex, sexual orientation, gender identity.” The bill’s authors made clear that gender identity is to take precedence over and replace sex as a protected category. The bill doesn’t mention individuals with clinically diagnosed gender dysphoria, or undertaking surgical or hormonal transition, thus making clear that self-declared gender identity would be sufficient to claim protected legal status.

Women and girls would be harmed by the Equality Act

Under current civil rights law employers may hire and assign work on the basis of sex only when it’s a bona fide occupational qualification. These are some jobs and assignments this change will affect, taking away the right of Americans to insist that only someone of the same sex be able to:

• Perform security pat-downs or strip searches

• Supervise locker rooms or shared showers

• Handle intimate care for hospital and long-term care patients

• Chaperone a doctor or medical assistant who is providing such care

• Perform intimate medical examinations

• Supervise drug tests

• Supervise children on overnight trips

Also from the summary, “The bill prohibits an individual from being denied access to a shared facility, including a restroom, a locker room, and a dressing room, that is in accordance with the individual's gender identity.” This means that American women will no longer be able to expect any single-sex facilities when using or being required to stay in:

• Shared hospital rooms or wards

• Locker rooms and public or group showers

• Multi-stall bathrooms

• Jails, prisons, or juvenile detention facilities

• Homeless shelters

• Overnight drug rehabilitation centers

• Domestic violence or rape crisis shelters 

This bill will also end sports programs and scholarships set aside for women and girls. All such programs will have to admit men and boys who identify themselves as women or girls. Such programs will no longer meet their intended purpose of protecting the rights of women and girls by redressing historical inequality of opportunity.

This bill tragically attempts to prohibit sex discrimination by forbidding the law to see sex. A law, and courts, that cannot see sex objectively, also cannot address sex discrimination or protect the bodily privacy rights and dignity of Americans in those circumstances where sex matters immensely. 

Take Action

National and state-wide polling have shown us over and over again that while Americans largely want to protect minority groups from discrimination, most Americans also want to protect women’s single-sex spaces and accommodations. Black and Hispanic voters, largely credited with leading the Democrats to victory in 2020, are among the least likely groups to actually support “gender identity” policies such as those in the Equality Act.

Today we are asking you to write to your Representatives in the House and ask them to vote NO on the Equality Act. Although the bill is likely to pass in the House, it is important the representatives on both sides of the aisle hear from constituents expressing their outrage and disappointment over the loss of our single-sex accommodations. We must no longer be a silent majority, but a powerful force that our representatives cannot ignore if they wish to stay in office.

Update 2/18/21:

On Thursday, Democrats in the Senate also proposed the Equality Act. Athough it is unclear when the Senate will bring the bill to the vote, you can also take action by writing your Senators asking them to also vote NO on the bill!