As a doula, I have assisted in over 60 births. While I’m no medical doctor or nurse, I can say one thing with absolute certainty: women, and women only, are designed to carry and bring babies into the world. And this truth is amazing.
While pregnant, a mother’s body produces the hormones necessary to support her growing baby until the placenta- an organ her body also creates- takes over. During the second stage of labor, a mother’s pelvis widens just enough to bring her baby from the womb and into her arms. A mother’s milk changes, adjusting to her infant’s nutritional needs as she grows.
The biological science of womanhood is a miracle. And it’s under attack. That’s why I have proudly sponsored the “What is a Woman Act” in the Wyoming Legislature, a bill that simply defines “male” and “female” as society and science has understood those terms forever- until about five minutes ago.
Naysayers will claim that my bill is unnecessary, that I’m pandering to a “national agenda.” But they are wrong. A biological male has pushed women from their sorority at the University of Wyoming. Wyoming high school girls are forced to share their spaces with boys, and I know this from first-hand accounts.. Female inmates risk being housed with males.
Others will claim that my bill targets marginalized people. This claim couldn’t be further from the truth. Not only does my bill reinforce the norm that biological sex is a reality, it protects women from being forced to share their private spaces with men, a goal that would have been deemed laudable- not hateful- just a few years ago.
Opponents will also claim that my bill will subject Wyoming to a loss of federal dollars. It may.
But when we have a federal government who, like an abusive spouse, demands that the states abandon their authority in exchange for millions of dollars, we cannot allow ourselves to be radicalized by dependence on those funds that require us to allow men in elementary school girls bathrooms.
We cannot bend the knee to the Biden administration’s demand that vulnerable female prison inmates share their cells with convicted rapists in exchange for the money We The People paid them in taxes. No amount of money is worth selling science and sanity down the drain.
After all, the Code of the West reminds us that some things are not for sale.
Those who claim that we need “Wyoming solutions for Wyoming problems” will sit idly by and allow the feds to dictate policies that put women in harm's way, that stomp on biological reality, and that force us to betray what we know to be moral and true.
As a mother of two daughters who is blessed to represent House District 57 in the Wyoming Legislature, I will do everything in my power to push back.
Rep. Jeanette Ward represents House District 57 in Casper
