PBS “communities correspondent” Adam Kemp authored a report Wednesday from Oklahoma City for the PBS NewsHour website, alarmed that the state of Oklahoma is officially insisting upon biological reality, as opposed to transgender-centered identity propaganda: “This new Oklahoma executive order narrowly defines ‘woman.’”
Tax-supported PBS has shown no interest in providing a balanced discussion on so-called gender-identity issues. While Kemp’s written piece outclassed most of PBS’s reporting by actually citing both sides of the gender debate, the tone and labeling choices made his sympathies clear.
After two failed efforts in the state legislature to define a woman and a man based on their sex assigned at birth, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed an executive order limiting those definitions, the latest blow to transgender rights in the state.
The order, which along with government agencies applies to schools and state institutions, stipulates definitions for certain terms, like “man,” “boy,” “woman,” “girl,” “father,” and “mother.” The narrow definitions in the so-called “Women’s Bill of Rights” exclude trans and nonbinary people or anyone whose gender does not fit into the binary categories of woman or man. The order’s language does not make room for those with chromosomal variations, like intersex people.
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Nicole McAfee, executive director of Freedom Oklahoma, an LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, said the directive is “neither about rights, nor is it about protecting women….What we are fighting against is homegrown bigotry in the place of policy.”
The governor’s order represents the latest in actions from conservative-led states to limit trans rights. It is based on model legislation from Independent Women’s Voice, a far-right group focused on protecting “women’s single-sex spaces” by advancing anti-trans policy….
Kemp treated basic nouns as arcane anti-trans terminology.
The two-page order says Oklahoma has “led the pushback in restoring reality” to discourse around gender, and directs state agencies to:
Define terms such as “female” and “male” based on an individual’s sex assigned at birth.
After his “far-right” jab at the opposition, Kemp sympathized with hysterical language from an unlabeled leftist group, the Human Rights Campaign.
Oklahoma’s series of anti-trans actions fit a broader pattern across conservative states. The 2023 legislative session was the worst one on record for anti-LGBTQ legislation since 2015, the Human Rights Campaign reported in June….The increasingly hostile political climate prompted the organization to declare a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the U.S.
Kemp let slimy labeling from the HRC stand unchallenged:
In the Human Rights Campaign’s report, President Kelley Robinson said that the series of anti-LGBTQ+ laws are “fueled by an anti-LGBTQ Republican establishment” and coordinated by “well-funded extremist groups” known for attacking trans and queer rights, like the Alliance Defending Freedom, Heritage Foundation and the Family Policy Alliance.
Also mentioned in the report? Independent Women’s Forum, affiliated with the sister organization Independent Women’s Voice, for testifying in support of anti-LGBTQ+ bills across the country. Members joined the Oklahoma governor as he signed this latest executive order into law including Riley Gaines, a former University of Kentucky swimmer and adviser for Independent Women’s Voice who has criticized a NCAA ruling that allowed trans swimmer Lia Thomas to compete in women’s championship events.
Kemp played the emotional blackmail card (“LGBTQ+ advocates say anti-trans legislation takes a major toll on mental health.”) before ending on a defiant note:
“Two-spirit, transgender, and gender non-conforming people have always been in Oklahoma. And we’ll always be here,” [Freedom Oklahoma’s] McAfee said.
For you philistines out there, “two-spirit” is a quasi-Native American term, originating circa 1990, for those who “see the world through the lens of both a male and female spirit.”