Left: Alabama Republican Rep. Susan DuBose (screengrab via Facebook). Right: Alabama Republican State Sen. April Weaver (Screengrab via WBRC).

In Alabama, where frozen embryos are considered “children,” hospitals have stopped carrying out IVF procedures, and inmates are being put to death via novel methods, two lawmakers have focusing their attention on ensuring that the term “intersex” and the concept of gender identity is abolished from the state’s lexicon.

Bills in the Alabama House and Senate look to define the terms “male,” “female,” “boy,” and “girl” under state law for the purpose of creating “single-sex spaces” that adhere to those definitions. According to the bill, “there are only two sexes,” and “men and women are equal but not physically the same.”

The bill also states that intersex individuals are not a “third sex,” but allows that those with medically verifiable differences in sex development must be accommodated under federal disability law.

“Intersex” is a nonmedical general term for a person whose anatomy does not fit the typical gender definitions. The term does not describe a transgender person who has a gender identity different from their sex at birth. Rather, “intersex” describes a group of nonbinary anatomical conditions, which is why New York City added intersex as a gender designation on official documents in 2017.

Alabama State Rep. Susan DuBose, a Republican, sponsored H.B. 111, which she said is intended to “protect women’s spaces” such as dorms and locker rooms, by restricting those spaces to those 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.”

Likewise, “males” under the law are those who have already, will in the future, or would have at some point “produced sperm.”