So-Called ‘Bipartisan’ Violence Against Women Act Uses Term ‘Gender Identity’

U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), alongside U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Joni
Office of Sen. Lisa Murkowski
Hannah Knudsen

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is up for debate yet again after Congress reauthorized it last month, but the 2022 version contains a number of fundamental flaws that would end up hurting women, as the multimillion-dollar measure bases fundamental positions on “gender identity” rather than biological sex. 

The bill, called the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization Act of 2022, has a number of flawed provisions hidden in its 335 pages. The Heritage Foundation listed some of the main issues in the so-called “compromise” bill, the first of which centers around its use of “gender identity” — a term transgender activists use to validate their extremist agenda. It appears in the measure three times:

The stealth inclusion of “gender identity” under sex-specific provisions, particularly as concerns single-sex spaces like federal prisons and shelters for battered women, is nothing but a political power play.

In other words, the bill does nothing to protect women from sharing spaces with biological men who claim to be women. Heritage also notes the measure makes “no provision for a religious exemption that might be exercised by faith-based homeless or battered women’s shelters who refuse to sacrifice their faith on the altar of ‘gender identity.’”

The bill also favors “culturally specific communities,” focusing on addressing “equity”— a popular term of leftists — rather than true equality:

As to what criteria are used to establish that one party is disadvantaged, or what standards or remedies must be applied to ensure equity is accomplished, no one can say. The Senate can choose which party is disadvantaged, the result it wants, and how much money it wants to spend to get there. And in this case, that amount is jaw-dropping.

The $750 million measure, which contains millions for special interest groups, also claims to address “reproductive and sexual coercion” — a seeming code for abortion, particularly cases of the man who impregnates a woman having a say on whether or not the woman decides to kill their child. 

It reads in part:

To provide prevention and education programming about domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking, including technological abuse and reproductive and sexual coercion, that is age-appropriate, culturally relevant, ongoing, delivered in multiple venues on campus, accessible, promotes respectful nonviolent behavior as a social norm, and engages men and boys. Such programming should be developed in partnership or collaboratively with experts in intimate partner and sexual violence prevention and intervention.

As Heritage observed: 

“Reproductive coercion” is a back door approach to making sure that young men who impregnant [sic] their girlfriends, or even young married men who impregnant [sic] their wives, have essentially relinquished their say in whether the woman should have an abortion. To refuse to terminate the life of the unborn child amounts to “reproductive coercion” and, for purposes of the Violence Against Women Act, domestic violence. In the Senate’s mind, to prevent an abortion is violence, but to have an abortion is tranquility.

The Family Research Council is among those urging lawmakers to reject the measure. 

“Women who have been victims of rape, sexual assault, sexual molestation, and sex trafficking, deserve a safe place to heal emotionally and physically. They should not be forced to share private spaces with biological men,” they wrote, concluding the measure “perpetuates abuse”:

Notably, Republican U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) joined Democrats Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) in introducing the measure in February.

“The provisions in this reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act will not only address countless barriers survivors experience in seeking justice, but will also save lives,” Murkowski claimed, touting the legislation as fundamentally “bipartisan” and something that would ultimately “empower victims” and “correct injustices that have existed even before VAWA’s inception.”

However, some Republican senators are vowing to protect Americans from radical transgender ideology in the upcoming year, as laid out by Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), in a recent campaign document. As Breitbart News detailed, the document explicitly “promises to protect the government’s recognition of the two different-and-complementary sexes” — one of the main issues in the VAWA.

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