On Thursday, February 8, 2024 the West Virginia House of Delegates held a public hearing on House Bill 5243. This bill, dubbed the Women’s Bill of Rights, is designed to more clearly define the words, “woman,” “man,” “girl,” “boy,” and “sex” used in West Virginia law. It emphasizes the need for single-sex private spaces such as dressing rooms, locker rooms, bathrooms, and prisons. Thankfully the bill passed in the House, with all Democrats and one Republican voting in opposition to it.
As it stands, West Virginia Schools and other government buildings allow men and boys to enter the private spaces of women and girls. This puts women, and especially young girls, in danger of being harmed by predators. To those who don’t know, or who need reminded, in the neighboring state of Virginia a teenage supposedly “gender fluid” boy raped a 15-year-old girl. This story, from Loudon County, became nationally recognized after the father of the teen girl was escorted out of a June 2021 Board of Education Meeting when he confronted the Superintendent for covering up the rape. The school system had also moved the perpetrator to another school where he ended up sexually assaulting a second victim.
How could our government schools have gotten to this point? In 2020 the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled in favor of a gender confused teenage girl who wanted to use the boys’ bathroom. The ruling of Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board, No. 19-1952 (4th Cir. 2020) claimed that it was sex-based discrimination for the school to deny the confused girl access to the boys’ bathroom. Which is, of course, a major contradiction in and of itself considering liberals who believe in “transgenderism” say that sex and gender are different. The reason that court ruling affects West Virginia is because the Fourth Circuit has jurisdiction over districts in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
At the House hearing on February 8th the majority of citizen speakers opposed the bill. Those opposed were the usual suspects; a couple of gender confused women, a gender confused man, a couple of Planned Parenthood (the baby murder mill) employees, some middle-aged hippies who still think they’re edgy, a dude who alleged that he’s a Christian, the ACLU of WV, Fairness WV (a LGBTQetc activist group), and WV FREE. They all spoke on a similar theme as if they had a shared script. They claimed that the bill does nothing to help women. Most demanded that it should instead allow them to slaughter the unborn, fix the gender pay gap (a myth), remove extra taxes that women have to pay for feminine hygiene products, and make it easier for wives to have their husbands charged with rape. The most glaring issue I have with all their nonsensical whining is this – how can they claim there are all these disparities between men and women when they can’t even tell us what a woman is? If gender is “on a spectrum” as liberals claim, then none of what they say matters. All the “oppressed” women have to do is demand to be called men and ABRA CADABRA! Gender issues solved!
Despite all the goofy talking points of the day there were a good many supporters of the bill. Notable speakers included Barry Holstein, Dennis Westover, Gail Westover, Shanna Thompson, and Nila Thompson. The one who stood out to me was Nila, a student at Kanawha County Schools. It appears she was the youngest speaker at the hearing, and that her decision to speak up was due to an unfortunate event she experienced last year. She mentioned how on August 21, 2023 she had witnessed an adult man in the female changing room of her dance class.
Nila detailed how this man just stood there watching the girls in the room as they changed. She also talked about the pitiful response that she and her mother got from her school system when they raised this concern in September. The solution of the school administration was for Nila, and any other girls who felt uncomfortable with the man in their space, to go to the men’s changing room instead. Nila’s words should have touched the hearts of all the women, both in the room and watching online, that day. But it would seem that to the WV liberals the feelings of confused people are more important than the safety of young girls.
I encourage you to have a listen to Nila’s statement by following this YouTube link and fast-forwarding to minute 3:40:
The awful solution that Nila’s school suggested is similar to what other schools have told girls and women around the U.S. When they’ve asked government agencies and corporations to kick the men out of their private spaces the requests have been denied. They are usually told to either accept it, find their own alternative place of privacy (rather than what’s already there), or leave/quit altogether. The idea is for the schools to take the “path of least resistance” or “the easy way out.” They’re failing to see the message that this sends to the youth and women of our country. Or maybe they know full well, which makes it worse.
The message from these liberal-run, woke schools is this – Don’t put up a fight, don’t resist, sit down, be quiet, take the blue pill and pretend this isn’t happening. Give up ground in your fight for safety and ignore the alarm bells that go off in your heads. Because we are afraid of the activists, and we won’t fight to protect you.
They are cowards, and thankfully people seem to be waking up to the charade that’s been going on this past decade. Nila and her mother are proof of that. The fact that House Bill 5243 passed in the House is proof of that.
Cowards won’t win the day or create the necessary changes for constitutional liberty in this state. That’s why Christians and constitutional conservatives have got to step up to the plate more and more in this hour. Being bold as lions!