Justine Larsen

How perverse and embarrassing. The very week that the women of Wyoming are told that they no longer have any right to the most personal decisions with their health care and will face arrest and prosecution should they want their life spared, the Wyoming federal delegation lauds women’s history in Wyoming.

Could this piece, supposedly authored by the Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis, and Rep. Harriet Hageman, but most likely written by one of their congressional interns, be any more tone deaf?

Here is the start of many questions I can’t stop from asking after reading it over my morning coffee.

Exactly how many women are making legislative decisions in Wyoming? How many women have been elected to a legislative seat in Wyoming, both historically and currently? Today, there are only eight women representatives in the Wyoming State House. In the Senate, of the 30 seats only six are held by women. Those voting in favor of legislation that removes a woman’s choice to determine how to address her own health care concerns, whether they are male or female, are not representing the interests of all the residents of Wyoming but the extremist wing of one political party. Additionally, how many of those legislators are just submitting ALEC (American Legislative Exchange) written and backed legislative proposals to see if the dolts in Cheyenne will actually vote them into law?

As ever, women in Wyoming are just targeted to provide service to the men of Wyoming. Why did women get the right to vote here first in this country’s history? This is something that I can answer with some visitation to credible websites on Wyoming history. Prior to the rebellion of the southern states of the Union and the ensuing Civil War, the only way Wyoming could move forward from U.S. Territory to becoming a state was to have the population. If women weren’t counted, much as they are not counted today to make choices for their own health and wellbeing, Wyoming would not have seen its statehood.

One of the current holders of the U.S. Senate seat, John Barrasso, is not originally from Wyoming, having moved into the state in 1983. Cynthia Lummis and Harriet Hageman were born in Wyoming but chose to not do a thing to benefit the women of Wyoming, because whatever man is directing them won’t direct them to do that.

When is Wyoming going to stop voting for people that will always work against more than half of Wyoming residents’ best interests? To truly state the case for women in Wyoming would go against the preferred narrative. In truth, the women of Wyoming earn less money, now have even fewer rights, and definitely don’t have equal representation in the fictitious “Equality” state. 

According to the wyohistory.org article titled “Right Choice, Wrong Reasons: Wyoming Women Win Right To Vote,” the three reasons for women receiving the right to vote from an all-male territorial legislature was publicity to bring more people to Wyoming, especially women; the party in power hoped women would keep them in power (Democrats then, Republicans today). Also, the legislature wanted to make the governor in 1868, Republican John Campbell, look bad when he would assuredly veto women’s suffrage. The governor was trying to champion the voting rights of former slaves, but had no use for women voting. This was not the way history was played out in this bait and switch game of the 1860s and Wyoming was the first in the nation to bring women the vote.

The selective highlighting of history by the Wyoming delegation of 2023 needs more light on the dark shadows of women’s suffrage. Of course, though the party affiliations have changed but the underhandedness has not. There are currently two women representing Wyoming in federal office and neither will champion or truly protect the rights of women in the state they have sworn to represent.

At the time of the push for women being able to vote in Wyoming, there were six men to every one woman. Today, it’s 285,068 women compared to 296,280 men. Why is a legislative body of mostly men dictating the issues of women’s health, especially when they extol the virtues of freedom and keeping the government from interfering with personal freedoms? Is that freedom only for men and not the women of this state? Again, more questions in observation of the invasive and hypocritical acts at play in Cheyenne with the blessing of this state’s federal elected officials.

The true history of women voting in Wyoming is based on a racial argument, according to another wyohistory.org article where it states the efforts in 1868 were because “many of the legislators strongly believe that if blacks and Chinese were to have the vote, then women — especially white women — should have it too.” I won’t share the quote from the article from an unnamed legislator from the Wyoming Territorial Legislature because it is vile and had no business being said then just as it should not be said today. To summarize without the invective, that unnamed legislator demeaned former slaves, Chinese immigrants, and women by saying they were all unworthy of the right to vote for their representation in a country based upon a doctrine of freedom from oppression. “Stories also circulated in later years that the whole thing had been a joke, but the lawmakers were mostly kidding, and the entire idea went further than anyone expected,” according to author Tom Rea. Fortunately, though, “Some lawmakers wanted to give the vote to women simply because it was the right thing to do.” It’s hard to believe that in 150 years of women’s suffrage in Wyoming, rights of women today are being eroded in a way that will result in women suffering, legislated by a body of men, signed into law by a man, and designed to take away the the right of women to have autonomy over their body. This brings to my mind the ancient quote, “The forest was shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe, for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood he was one of them.”

Finally, a last question to ponder: When will there be a bill to ban erectile dysfunction treatment in this state that wants to be lauded for its alleged equality? Want to control unwanted pregnancies? Start right where the process begins, for it certainly takes two to tango and make a new life, whether intended or not.  Better yet, maybe the legislative powers that want to control the choices of half the population of this state should legislate vasectomies for any and every male in Wyoming until they can prove they are financially stable enough to raise a child without the state having to step in and fund that child’s upkeep. Fair is fair, right? If a male resident can’t prove they can afford a child, let the extremists in the Wyoming Legislature throttle their joystick.