While legislation that would improve public safety, ensure adequate funding for vulnerable populations, and improve ethics for elected officials continues to be blocked from consideration by the majority party, on Thursday State Senator Andrew Chesney (R-Freeport) spoke out on the Senate floor against two Democratic bills that seek to strip state statutes of gender-identifying language and replaces them with gender-neutral wording.
House Bill 1596 seeks to amend various laws concerning children by replacing specific pronouns with gender-neutral words, replaces the word “biological” with “birth”, replaces the word “mother” with “person who gave birth,” and replaces references to “boys and girls” with “children.”
“We have serious issues to discuss, but instead we’re debating bills that advance the extreme left’s social agenda. Rather than looking at how we can support families and our men and women in blue or improve ethics in our state, we’re debating the removal of references to specific genders from the state statutes,” said Chesney. “Replacing the word ‘mother’ with the term ‘person who gave birth’ is an insult to those who carried, nurtured, and went through the birthing process. Those people are called ‘mothers.’”
Similarly, House Bill 2350 seeks to amend the Illinois Insurance Code to remove gendered terms in sections that relate to pap smears and prostate exams, by replacing references to ‘men’ and ‘women’ with “individuals.”
“This bill is outrageous. It is biologically impossible for a female to receive a prostate exam and it is equally impossible for a male to receive a pap smear,” continued Chesney. “At a time when people are leaving our state in droves, I can’t believe these are the priority bills the Democrats are bringing forward.”
Both bills passed the Democratic-controlled Senate and are headed to the Governor’s desk for his signature.
