Bill sponsors

SB 1100 was authored by Senator Micheal Bergstrom and Representative Sheila Dills.^[5] The bill was sponsored by twenty legislators, eight members of the Oklahoma Senate and twelve of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, all Republican. The eight Senators were:^[6]

The twelve Representatives were:^[6]

Stages

Bergstrom filed the bill on October 20, 2021, before the second session of the 58th Oklahoma Legislature convened in February 2022.^[7] It was found to have no fiscal considerations to the state.^[8]

SB 1100 had its first reading in the Oklahoma Senate on 7 February 2022 and its second reading the next day, when it was referred to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.^[9] On 28 February, the Committee voted 7–3 to recommend that the Senate pass SB 1100; Julie Daniels, Jessica Garvin, Adam Pugh, Frank Simpson, Rob Standridge, John Haste and Paul Rosino voted for the recommendation, and Jo Anna Dossett, Carri Hicks and George E. Young voted against it.^[10] On 24 March, the Senate passed SB 1100 with 38 'ayes' and 7 'nays'.^[9][10]

On April 6, the bill was passed by the House Public Health Committee by a 7–1 vote;^[5] Sherrie Conley, Toni Hasenbeck, Dell Kerbs, Carl Newton, Cynthia Roe, Marilyn Stark and Wendi Stearman voted for it, and only Ajay Pittman voted against.^[11] The House passed the bill on April 21 by 75–16.^[12] The Oklahoma Democratic Party accused Republican state legislators of "hateful rhetoric" and personal attacks on Mauree Turner during House debates on the bill.^[13] Turner, the representative for Oklahoma's 88th House district, is the first non-binary person elected to a state legislature.^[14]

SB 1100 was sent to Governor Kevin Stitt on 25 April and signed the next day.^[9]

Support

Bergstrom said that the bill was "common sense" and that "it's not a complicated issue – biologically, you're either a male or female".^[15] Dills argued that the bill provided "clarity and truth on official state documents" and that markers should be "based on established medical fact and not an ever-changing social dialogue".^[16]

Opposition

On the day the bill was debated, Mauree Turner, a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives and the first publicly non-binary U.S. state lawmaker,^[17] tweeted that the bill was "a very extreme and grotesque use of power".^[1][16]

Nicole McAfee, executive director of Freedom Oklahoma, said that the LGBTQ+ community in Oklahoma would "continue to fight for a state where we have full equality under the law".^[18] Cathryn Oakley, senior counsel with the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement that banning non-binary birth certificates "is just another attempt to erase the identity of transgender and non-binary people" and that it went against the wishes of "the vast majority of Oklahomans".^[19] The ACLU also opposed the bill.^[20]

In an editorial, The Norman Transcript condemned the legislature for "[choosing] to take action it knows will harm LGBTQ+ Oklahomans" and "specifically targeting [LGBTQ+ people] and their very safe existence in our state".^[21]