Section 9:57 - Legislative findingsThe legislature finds and declares that:
(1) "Physical differences between men and women, however, are enduring: '[T]he two sexes are not fungible; a community made up exclusively of one [sex] is different from a community composed of both.'" United States v. Virginia, et al., 518 U.S. 515, 533 (1996), citing Ballard v. United States, 329 U.S. 187, 193 (1946).(2) The United States Supreme Court has recognized that there are "'[i]nherent differences' between men and women", and that these differences "remain cause for celebration, but not for denigration of the members of either sex or for artificial constraints on an individual's opportunity" in United States v. Virginia, et al., 518 U.S. 515, 533 (1996).(3) The equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America allows for legislatures to enact facially neutral laws of general applicability, such as biologically based definitions of sex.(4) Biologically based definitions of sex have been consistently applied since our nation's founding.(5) Decades of opinions from the Supreme Court of the United States have upheld the argument that biological distinctions between male and female are a matter of scientific fact, and biological sex is an objectively defined category that has obvious, immutable, and distinguishable characteristics. Added by Acts 2024, No. 436,s. 1, eff. 8/1/2024.