Thread by @BBuchman_CNS

Today, the House Rules Committee met to discuss H.R. 5, or the Equality Act, which will go to a vote on the House floor this Friday.
The legislation, according to Democrats, will expand civil rights protections for LGBT and women by inserting language into existing laws...

like the Civil Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act, to name a couple, that would include the words "sex" and "gender identity."
The bill is here: documentcloud.org/documents/6003…

Republicans on the committee took issue with the lack of specificity around the word "gender identity," which, in the legislation, is defined as something one self reports or determines. Several GOP lawmakers said the lack of a definition could result in abuses to the system....

or potentially infringe on the rights of women overall.
Republican lawmakers almost exclusively used the example of inequality in women's sports as the premise for their objection to the bill.

Rep Doug Collins, R-GA: "The problem in the language is self-identifying. You don’t have to [have a] note, or undergo medical treatment. There's no process, its simply a self-identification process."

He continues: "I understand from [the LGBTQ] community this is a concern, but to those not in the community, there is a concern on how it would play out. I'm simply asking for the best terminology… I think the specificity needs to be tighter."

Democrat Rep. Nadler, in response: First, he notes that the very least, the only thing the GOP is getting hung up on today is transgender, not lesbians or gay men. "That’s progress by itself and it should be noted," he says.
But...

"Some ppl say this is a psychological problem or a self referential problem, which is exactly what was said about gay ppl 40 yrs ago. [Being lesbian or gay] is a condition of existence, its the way people are created & the same thing is true, I believe, of transgender people."

Nadler then notes how Republican members are using women's sports as the shining example of inequality that would be exacerbated by the bill. Referencing two-time Olympian Caster Semenya, who was booted from competing due to high levels of testosterone, Nadler says:

"One of the major sports federations enacted a provision that a woman, not a transgender person, a woman, with higher than specified testosterone levels could not compete in women’s sports. If you have more testosterone, you may have more muscle weight or strength...

and that's considered much too unfair to compete w/other women. But the fact is Mickey Mantle had unusually heavy upper body strength, did we say he can’t compete?"

" The fact that he has an unusual amount of whatever it is in the body that develops upper body muscle strength, does that mean he was unfair competition? The same thing applies here, what is too much…why is it to much?...."

"[Caster Semenya] was born with that condition, or blessing, in the way that someone like Ted Williams was born with whatever was his strength," Nadler says.
He ends by saying its illogical to premise the debate on sports, ultimately.

When they got beyond the sports debate, they moved to a debate on the mutability or immutability of gender identity. Republicans posit because a person may change their gender ID on a whim it creates legal entanglements and confusion for groups outside of that community.

One Republican lawmaker posed a hypothetical: What about someone who is a subject in a lawsuit because they made an assumption about someone's sexual orientation or identity and found themselves being sued because of that?

Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin says in response: "I'm not clear - so are you are discriminating or not discriminating? Because if you're not, you have nothing to worry about."

The House votes on Friday, and I'll have coverage of that when it occurs, but I'll also dive a bit deeper into this for @CourthouseNews soon. The legislation is likely to die in the Senate, but again...

A lot of the legislation going through the House is symbolic, provides flash points for the 2020 candidates and pulls the congressional dialogue toward these issues - it forces lawmakers to go on the record.