From the Heritage Foundation, I'm Michelle Cordero, and this is Heritage Explains.

The Senate Judiciary Committee held its first hearing last week on the Equality Act.

A bill that would make gender identity

and sexual orientation, a protected class under federal civil rights law.

President Joe Biden has said that passing the Equality Act is one of his top priorities

during his first 100 days in office.

And the House passed its version of the Equality Act in February. And now the

Senate is the last hurdle. Instead of discriminating against and marginalizing LGBTQ Americans

and LGBTQ kids, we should be working toward a more inclusive America.

That's exactly what the Equality Act would help accomplish.

That was Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin.

He and other advocates for the bill spent their time stating that the Equality Act would not have negative implications for women's sports or religious institutions, and that they simply want the same rights as everyone else.

And here's journalist and author Abigail Schreier, who also testified that day and disagrees.

If a woman in your state commits a crime, should she be put in a correctional facility with biological males, some of whom are sex offenders, some of whom may have only begun identifying as female weeks earlier,

all of whom could easily overpower her.

If a preschool has a policy that only female teachers may accompany little girls to the

bathroom and your daughter's male teacher suddenly identifies as female, ought that

teacher to have a legal

entitlement to accompany her? Does that strike anyone in this room as safe or sensible?

Should a female abuse survivor at a domestic violence shelter be forced to sleep and undress

next to a biological male? The plain truth is that it is not sensible, not safe, and certainly not just to end these

hard-won protections for women and girls in the name of equality.

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