Action Alert | Anti-Trans Bills in the Senate Judiciary Committee

This Thursday at 9 AM, two anti-trans bills will be heard in the state senate judiciary committee. Call and email your legislators today!

Jan 19, 2022

This Thursday at 9 AM, two anti-trans bills will be heard in the Arizona state senate judiciary committee. Both bills target key resources and community support structures for trans children, and it’s critical that we keep them from moving forward.

About the Bills:

SB 1130: Sponsored by Senator Wendy Rogers, this bill would classify transition care for a child or vulnerable adult – including puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgery – as abuse. Notably, the bill includes exceptions for intersex individuals who need care, but attacking providers will only make it harder to get that care when it’s needed. Medical treatment from trusted providers should be accessible to anyone who needs it, for whatever reason they need it. We need the best resources for our kids when circumstances come along that we aren’t prepared for.
SB 1165: Sponsored by Senator Nancy Barto and 23 other legislators from both chambers, this bill targets transgender student athletes, requiring all school sports to have an explicit gender designation and then restricting “students of the male sex” from sports designated for “females, women, or girls.” Senator Barto wants SB 1165 to be called the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” but sports are not under attack. School sports give students incredible opportunities to practice leadership, teamwork, and self-respect – opportunities all students deserve. When our state leadership decides to put the focus on whether or not trans students deserve to play alongside their peers, it disrupts that experience for every student.

What You Can Do Right Now:

If you have an active account, sign on to Request to Speak to mark your position against both bills. You can sign up to give testimony at the same time; unlike in last year’s session, all testimony must be given in-person at the state capitol. To follow the hearing remotely, you can watch a video livestream, and to sign up and activate your Request to Speak account, you can use this tool from Civic Engagement Beyond Voting.

Before Thursday’s hearing, reach out to the members of the committee directly and encourage them not to advance divisive and discriminatory legislation that would diminish the quality of Arizona’s essential community resources:

Members of the Judiciary Committee

Nancy Barto (R): nbarto@azleg.gov | (602) 926-5766
Sonny Borrelli (R): sborrelli@azleg.gov | (602) 926-5051
Lupe Contreras (D): lcontreras@azleg.gov | (602) 926-5284
Vince Leach (R): vleach@azleg.gov | (602) 926-3106
Warren Petersen (R) - Chairman: wpetersen@azleg.gov | (602) 926-4136
Martin Quezada (D): mquezada@azleg.gov | (602) 926-5911
Wendy Rogers (R) - Vice-Chairman: wrogers@azleg.gov | (602) 926-3042
Stephanie Stahl Hamilton (D): sstahlhamilton@azleg.gov | (602) 926-3279

Anti-LGBTQ Bills to Watch Out For:

House Bills

HB 2011: one of a number of bills that have already received committee assignments, this bill would require parental opt-in for students to join school groups or clubs “involving sexuality, gender or gender identity.” This catch-all language puts GSA clubs in the crosshairs. It abstracts the real people – LGBTQ kids looking for support and community at school – out of the equation altogether, turning something for people into something about a topic, with the implicit premise that the topic is objectionable.
HB 2161: this bill would require health care entities and public schools to out trans children, classifying a child’s gender identity or desire to transition in such a way that to affirm or support a trans child without immediately outing them would be a violation of parental rights. The real impact of this bill would be to erode the trust children can expect to have in the adults in their lives.
HB 2292: the return of a failed bill from last session, this bill would require Arizona birth certificates to “indicate the individual's sex as either male or female.” These are already the only two options in Arizona. HB 2292 has been assigned to the House Health and Human Services Committee, but has not received a date for a hearing.
HB 2293: a particularly mean spirited bill, HB 2293 would ensure that public schools could not require their employees to respect students’ pronouns.
HB 2294: parallel to HB 2292, this bill requires “a document issued by any agency, board, commission or department of this state that is required by law to indicate an individual's sex” to “only indicate the individual's sex as either male or female.” Again, these are already the only two options in Arizona.
HB 2314: this session’s first “bathroom bill” matches the theme of the session with a singular focus on schools. Under the guise of reasonable accommodation language, it bans trans people in public schools from using the bathrooms and changing facilities appropriate to their gender, and creates a structure for individuals to sue public schools if they share a single-sex space with a trans person.

Senate Bills

SB 1045: The first section of this bill would require school counselors, nurses, and teachers to out trans students in their care to potentially unsupportive family members, similarly to HB 2161. In its second section, SB 1045 would ban virtually all transition care for minors, including puberty blockers, threatening healthcare providers with a class 4 felony for prescribing them. This bill has been assigned to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, but has not received a date for a hearing.
SB 1046: as with SB 1165, this bill targets transgender student athletes, banning “students of the male sex” from school sports “designated for females, women, or girls.” The two bills are nearly word-for-word copies, but SB 1046 carries an additional requirement that students undergo an invasive series of genital inspections, hormone tests, and genetic analysis if their gender is called into question. Mirroring HB 2314, other provisions of this bill would allow students who feel wronged by the presence of their trans peers to seek damages against their school.
SB 1138: like SB 1045 and SB 1130, this bill puts the focus on physicians and health care professionals, barring them from providing or making referrals for “gender transition procedures to any individual who is under eighteen years of age.” This would block access to gender affirming surgeries, hormone therapy, and even puberty blockers. SB 1138 has been assigned to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. You can learn more in our recent Action Alert.