SB1628

THE CONTEXT: Federal law prohibits discrimination on the basis of certain characteristics, including sex-based discrimination. For example, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.

WHAT THE BILL DID: The final vetoed version would require any policy, program, rule or law that prohibits sex discrimination to also prohibit the unfair treatment of a female or male in relation to a similarly situated member of the opposite sex, instruct the state of Arizona to replace the stand-alone term gender with sex in all laws, rules, publications, orders, actions, programs, policies and signage, and to revise these authorities to use the term sex in each place that the stand-alone term gender is used only when updates are otherwise necessary, and allow the state of Arizona and its political subdivisions to provide a separate single-sex environment including in athletics, living facilities, locker rooms, bathrooms, domestic violence shelters and sexual assault crises centers for a male or female if the sexes are not similarly situated, particularly with respect to biology.

WHY IT MATTERED: The practical reason for this bill was to set a clear legal boundary for sex-based terms instead of leaving the conduct unaddressed. It would require any policy, program, rule or law that prohibits sex discrimination to also prohibit the unfair treatment of a female or male in relation to a similarly situated member of the opposite sex, and would also instruct the state of Arizona to replace the stand-alone term gender with sex in all laws, rules, publications, orders, actions, programs, policies and signage, and to revise these authorities to use the term sex in each place that the stand-alone term gender is used only when updates are otherwise necessary, rather than leave the current rule unchanged.