Pennsylvania SB 213: An Act recognizing two sexes, male and female; and providing for duties and prohibitions.

Bill Text

PRINTER'S NO. 183
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA
SENATE BILL
No. 213
Session of
2025
INTRODUCED BY MASTRIANO, DUSH, HUTCHINSON, COSTA AND J. WARD,
FEBRUARY 4, 2025
REFERRED TO STATE GOVERNMENT, FEBRUARY 4, 2025
AN ACT
Recognizing two sexes, male and female; and providing for duties
and prohibitions.
The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
hereby enacts as follows:
Section 1. Short title.
This act shall be known and may be cited as the Two Gender
Protection Act.
Section 2. Policy.
The General Assembly finds and declares that it is the policy
of the Commonwealth to recognize two sexes, male and female.
The sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and
incontrovertible reality.
Section 3. Definitions.
The following words and phrases when used in this act shall
have the meanings given to them in this section unless the
context clearly indicates otherwise:
"Boy." A juvenile human male.
"Female." An individual belonging, at conception, to the sex
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that produces the large reproductive cell.
"Gender ideology." The replacement of the biological
category of sex with a concept of self-assessed gender identity.
The term includes the idea that there is a vast spectrum of
genders that are disconnected from one's sex.
"Gender identity." A fully internal and subjective sense of
self, disconnected from biological reality and sex and existing
on an infinite continuum, that does not provide a meaningful
basis for identification and cannot be recognized as a
replacement for sex.
"Girl." A juvenile human female.
"Woman." An adult human female.
"Man." An adult human male.
"Male." An individual belonging, at conception, to the sex
that produces the small reproductive cell.
"Sex." An individual's immutable biological classification
as either male or female. The term does not include the concept
of gender identity.
Section 4. Biological distinction.
(a) Guidance.--Within 30 days of the effective date of this
subsection, the Secretary of Health shall provide to the
Commonwealth and the public clear guidance expanding on the sex-
based definitions in section 3.
(b) Enforcement and terms.--Each agency and State employee
shall enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections,
opportunities and accommodations to protect men and women as
biologically distinct sexes. Each agency should give the terms
"sex," "male," "female," "men," "women," "boys" and "girls" the
meanings in section 3 when interpreting or applying statutes,
regulations or guidance and official agency business, documents
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and communications.
(c) Sex-based distinctions.--If administering or enforcing
sex-based distinctions, each agency and State employee acting in
an official capacity on behalf of the agency shall use the term
"sex" and not "gender" in all applicable Commonwealth policies
and documents.
(d) Identification documents.--The Secretary of the
Commonwealth shall implement changes to require that government-
issued identification documents accurately reflect the holder's
sex. The head of each agency shall ensure that applicable
personnel records accurately report a State employee's sex.
(e) Removal.--Agencies shall remove statements, policies,
regulations, forms, communications or other internal and
external messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender
ideology and shall cease issuing the statements, policies,
regulations, forms, communications or other messages. Agency
forms that require an individual's sex shall list male or female
and shall not request gender identity. Agencies shall take all
necessary steps, as permitted by law, to end the Federal funding
of gender ideology.
(f) Single-sex and gender neutral spaces.--
(1) The Attorney General shall immediately issue
guidance to agencies to prohibit the requirement of gender
identity-based access to single-sex spaces and shall issue
guidance and assist agencies in protecting sex-based
distinctions.
(2) State institutions, schools and other State-funded
locations may provide gender neutral bathrooms and changing
areas that are completely private and separate from single-
sex spaces.
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(g) Prohibition of fund use.--State funds may not be used to
promote gender ideology. Each agency shall assess grant
conditions and grantee preferences and ensure that grant funds
do not promote gender ideology.
Section 5. Privacy in intimate spaces.
(a) Prisons.--The Attorney General and Secretary of
Corrections shall ensure that males are not detained in women's
prisons or housed in women's detention centers.
(b) Single-sex rape shelters.--The Secretary of Labor and
Industry shall submit to the General Assembly a policy for the
protection of women seeking single-sex rape shelters.
(c) Medical care.--The Attorney General shall ensure