Today, Independent Women’s Voice (IWV) condemns Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs’s anti-woman veto of the Arizona Women’s Bill of Rights (WBOR), which would have codified the longstanding common sense definitions of words such as ‘woman’, ‘man’, ‘female’, and ‘male’ when used in state law. 

The measure aims to prevent judges, unelected bureaucrats, and administrators in Arizona from unilaterally redefining the word “woman” to mean anyone who “identifies as a woman.” In this way, the Women’s Bill of Rights would prevent help protect current single-sex spaces from legal attack while preserving the legislature’s authority to determine whether, and in what circumstances, dormitories, domestic violence shelters, prisons, rape crisis center, athletic teams, locker rooms, or bathrooms should be open to members of both sexes. 

Governor Hobbs now becomes the second Democratic female governor to veto this critical legislation. Last year, the Kansas Legislature overrode Governor Laura Kelly’s veto after the measure passed the Kansas Women’s Bill of Rights with bipartisan support. 

“Ironically, despite being a woman, Gov. Hobbs refuses to acknowledge that women are adult, human, females — as commonly understood for millenia — and has no interest in advancing privacy, safety, and equal opportunity for the 3.6 million Arizonan women,” said Christy Narsi, Arizona native and national chapter director for Independent Women’s Network. 

Paula Scanlan, Independent Women’s Voice ambassador, said: “It’s shameful that a female Governor has just vetoed the Women’s Bill of Rights, a common sense bill that defines words like ‘woman’, ‘girl’, and ‘female’. Women in the state of Arizona depend on this bill to help prevent sex discrimination and it’s particularly harmful a woman doesn’t want to stand with women.”

“Notwithstanding Democratic Party leadership’s embrace of ’gender identity,’ leftist feminists globally are rejecting it in favor of laws, policies, and practices that protect the sex-based rights of women and girls,” said Kara Dansky, President of Women’s Declaration International USA. The Arizona Women’s Bill of Rights would have enacted that protection in Arizona. There is nothing progressive about pretending sex isn’t real.”

Independent Women’s Voice, Independent Women’s Law Center (IWLC), and the feminist organization Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) collaborated to draft the model legislation in March 2022. The U.S. Chapter of Women’s Declaration International (WDI, USA) also endorses the Women’s Bill of Rights. 

To read and sign the Women’s Bill of Rights, click HERE.

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