The Alabama House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday that would define biological sex in binary terms based on individuals’ reproductive systems rather than their gender identity.

House Bill (HB) 111 would amend the Alabama Code to define sex-based terms, provide policy relating to sex and gender identity, allow public entities to establish some single-sex spaces, and require public entities collecting vital statistics related to sex to identify individuals as male or female as observed at birth.

The bill states, “There are only two sexes, and every individual is either male or female.” Under this definition, sex is “objective” and “fixed” and would exclude any reference to an individual’s gender identity. The bill explains, however, that individuals with “intersex conditions” or “differences in sex development” must be accommodated in compliance with state and federal law.

HB 111 provides various definitions for certain sex-based terms, defining sex as “the state of being male or female as observed or clinically verified at birth.” The bill also defines a female as a person “who has, had, will have, or would have, but for a developmental anomaly, genetic anomaly, or accident, the reproductive system that at some point produces ova.” It further defines a male as an individual “who has, had, will have, or would have, but for a developmental anomaly, genetic anomaly, or accident, the reproductive system that at some point produces sperm.”

The bill states that while men and women are legally equal, they are also physically different, and that “inconsistencies in court rulings and policy initiatives regarding sex discrimination and common sex-based words have endangered women’s rights and resources and have put the existence of private, single-sex spaces in jeopardy.” HB 111 explains that the state holds an “important interest in preventing unjust sex discrimination” and that the bill will advance this interest by providing clarity, certainty and uniformity for issues regarding sex.

State Representative Susan DuBose, the bill’s sponsor, emphasized that the bill was solely focused on protecting women’s rights. She stated, “Women need to have, in some cases, safe spaces,” and that this bill would allow the legislature to protect such spaces. DuBose added on Facebook that the bill is a response to the participation of transgender women in women’s sports and the inclusion of transgender women in women’s locker rooms. She said, “[U]nfortunately, what a woman is is changing, and we want to protect women’s rights.” DuBose also sponsored a bill in 2023 that prohibited transgender college athletes from competing in sports that correlate with their gender.

Critics of HB 111, however, claim the bill does not protect women’s rights but inflicts significant harm on the LGBTQ+ community in Alabama. At a House Committee hearing about the bill in February, Senior Policy Associate with the Southern Poverty Law Center Katie Glenn stated, “[The bill] does not address any real issues that people in this state are dealing with right now, and it is yet another, in a long line of bills, aimed at further attacking and isolating the LGBTQ community.”

The Alabama legislature has introduced multiple bills attempting to define biological sex over the past few years. In 2023, DuBose sponsored a bill that similarly sought to define sex based on individuals’ reproductive systems, but that bill was indefinitely postponed. An Alabama Senate committee advanced a comparable bill in February. Other states, such as Nebraska and Oklahoma, have succeeded in enacting legislation that defines sex on reproductive terms, and Mississippi is currently attempting to do the same.

HB 111 is one of five “anti-trans bills” in Alabama currently sitting in the Alabama legislature, according to the Trans Legislation Tracker, and various states across the nation have also introduced legislation targeting the transgender and nonbinary communities. Alabama is one of 23 states, including Louisiana and Texas, that have enacted laws criminalizing gender-affirming care for transgender minors. Some states, such as Florida, have attempted to prohibit the use of personal pronouns in certain public school contexts, and Ohio has also prohibited transgender participation in sports. The increase in laws targeting transgender and nonbinary individuals, as well as other members of the LGBTQ+ community, led the Human Rights Campaign to declare a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the US in 2023.