As budget reconciliation continues, Republicans in both chambers are working to codify many of the president's executive orders, including the federal government's recognition of only two genders, male and female.
It seems odd that a law is required to address biological realities, but Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kansas), a former OBGYN who delivered an estimated 5,000 babies before his political career, told Washington Watch Monday that it is important that Congress get one on the books.
"People ask me what I miss most about obstetrics, and it's the moment that baby was born," he told show host Tony Perkins.
Marshall said he would clean the baby, stimulate it to cry, then hand it to the parents.
"I'd say, 'It's a boy' or 'It's a girl.' Nobody ever gave me the baby back and said, 'Hey, we don't want to assign the sex yet,'" he asserted. "It's hard for me to imagine here I am eight years later, and we're arguing about this."
He thinks a law supporting Trump's EO would end a lot of the arguing.
So last week, Marshall introduced the Defining Male and Female Act of 2025, a bill codifying the legal definitions of male, female, and sex to ensure they are based on biological reality rather than radical left-wing ideology.
Specifically, the bill recognizes:
- The definition of male and female on the basis of a person belonging at conception to the sex characterized by a reproductive system with the biological function of producing eggs or producing sperm.
- The right of girls and women to sex-separate sports and scholarships.
- The sex separation of restrooms, locker and dorm rooms, prisons and shelters for victims of assault.
House bill also in the works
Representative Mary Miller (R-Illinois) has put forward parallel legislation in the House. She first introduced the Defining Male and Female Act last summer in the waning days of Joe Biden's time as president.
"Since Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took office, they have obliterated Title IX, allowing confused and predatory men into women's sports and restrooms," she said at the time. "The Defining Male and Female Act would provide clear legal definitions so that neither the Biden administration nor any future administration can redefine Title IX. We must protect biological women and girls' safety and opportunities, and I urge the House to act swiftly in passing this bill to recognize the fundamental differences between men and women."
Senate co-sponsors are all Republicans: Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Tim Sheehy of Montana, Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, and Pete Ricketts of Nebraska.
A Pew Research Center poll in 2022 showed the numbers rising among Americans who say sex can only be assigned at birth.
It was 60% before the Biden administration force-fed and way undersold the idea for another two years.
"I don't think it's an 80/20 issue; I think it's a 90/10 issue," said Marshall. "Nevertheless, the Democrats are just digging deeper and deeper in this hole."
Results of the 2024 election, when Trump won the popular vote by more than two million and the electoral college with 312 votes, changed neither Democrats' resolve nor the efforts of the transgender movement to target the young.
Conservatives are constantly fighting against drag shows at public libraries and explicit content in school libraries.
Just last week, an Iowa judge, a Biden appointee, temporarily blocked the part of a state law that prohibits school libraries and classrooms from carrying books that depict sex acts.
The Biden administration proved that it would advance transgender causes regardless of numbers. Republicans now, with slim majorities in both the Senate and House, must act to support a Republican president create a gender definition law, Marshall said.
"No one's promised tomorrow," he acknowledged. "We don't know who the next president is going to be. It's important long term that we codify this. It's important to me, and I think Christians everywhere, that we protect the rights of young ladies, we protect their safety, and we protect their dignity."
It's about protection for girls and women too
While "gender" is in the name, the girls' and women's protections outlined in the bill cannot be overstated.
"I don't think we're spending near enough time talking about protecting the dignity of ladies, of girls," Marshall contended. "No one yet can look me in the eye and say, 'Hey, I think it's perfectly fine to have a biological boy in the shower with these young ladies.' So, we need to protect their rights, their safety, and their dignity."
In his view, this argument is a spiritual issue at its core.
"People are saying that we are God, that we get to determine whether this is a male or a female. So, they're rejecting the perfectness of God," the senator said. "God knew us, made us perfectly. In the womb, we were made perfectly. So, they want to reject what God has given us."
