When Rep. Toni Hasenbeck was leading the charge to pass the Women’s Bill of Rights in Oklahoma, she was accused of “targeting transgender women”—also known as men. While Hasenbeck would strongly dispute the notion that she targeted anyone, she would agree that the bill in question was designed to “provide clarity in our laws as it pertains to biological men and women for the purpose of government work.”
The “Women’s Bill of Rights” passed the Oklahoma House, 79-19. When it faltered in the state Senate, Governor Kevin Stitt signed a “Women’s Bill of Rights” executive order that incorporated many of the points in Hasenbeck’s bill. Because the executive order lapses when the governor’s tenure is up, Hasenbeck will try again to pass the bill this year and codify the terms into Oklahoma law.
Hasenbeck, who taught 7th graders in the public school system for 17 years, and is the mother of three, does not shy away from tackling hot-button issues. Hasenbeck is the principal House author of the Save Women’s Sports Act, which bars men from participating in competitive women’s athletics. It took several tries to pass the bill. “To this day, the governor says it’s his favorite piece of legislation that he’s signed so far,” Hasenbeck says proudly.
Hasenbeck is also the author of a bill that banned giving minors opposite-sex hormone regimens or surgically altering their sex characteristics in Oklahoma. A federal district court judge upheld the law after activists claimed it was unconstitutional, but the ACLU, which opposed Hasenbeck’s bill, vows to fight on.
When Rep. Toni Hasenbeck was leading the charge to pass the Women’s Bill of Rights in Oklahoma, she was accused of “targeting the transgender community.” She argued it was essential to “provide clarity in our laws as it pertains to biological men and women for the purpose of government work.
She has also been a defender of women who committed homicide after having been abused by an intimate partner. Hasenbeck authored the Domestic Abuse Survivorship bill, which requires the court to consider whether abuse was present in cases of intimate-partner homicides. The bill, which requires strong evidence, made it out of committee but has not been passed. Hasenbeck will keep trying. “I had a very heartwarming conversation with a group of sheriffs in Caddo County, which is in my district,” Hasenbeck tells IWF. Oklahoma ranks second in the U.S. for domestic violence.
Why is Hasenbeck, a willowy woman with blonde hair, who has the poise to hold her ground on Amanpour & Company without breaking a sweat, willing to take on controversial issues? Maybe it was 4-H Club and chasing all those runaway cows with her mother.
Hasenbeck grew up on a farm about 12 miles from Stillwater, Oklahoma, with supportive parents, who are still living. Her father was a nationally recognized auctioneer, who sold purebred livestock, mostly swine, but some cattle, and traveled frequently on business. The same thing happened every time he left home.
“We had cows and pigs and no cows ever got out when my dad was at home,” Toni recalls, “but if he traveled, even if was only 50 miles away, the cows got out. There’d be cows out everywhere. Mom and I would drive the truck over to where they were, throw them in the gate, and fix the fence. There would always be somebody around to help us because Dad would make sure to let neighbors know when he was going to be gone, so they could help us and stuff like that. We had a community, which is an amazing thing about rural America.”
Another formative influence was the 4-H Club. “I was a 4-H’er from the time I was nine to the time I was 18,” she says. But that was not the only character-building organization of Toni’s adolescence. “When I was in seventh grade and all my friends and I started acting terrible,” Hasenbeck says, “my mother would round us up and take us to a homeless shelter on Thursday and make us prepare the meal. We would join the staff, but we would prepare and serve meals to homeless people on Thursday night.”
Despite the cows, it sounds like an ideal childhood. Her parents made a point of buying a house in a good school district. “I was probably 35, maybe 40 years old, before I understood what school choice meant to the rest of the world. I think school choice is something that everybody should have. And it’s a family’s right to send their kids to the place where they think their child’s going to do the best. I was privileged to have great teachers. Stillwater is a university town. All my English teachers in high school were either working on their Ph.D., had it, or working on a master’s degree. So, they expected a little more out of us because they were taking our work to their own classes and showing it to their colleagues and their professors. I did my undergraduate degree at Oklahoma State University. I have a degree in fine arts in painting.”
She has a master’s degree in administration from Cameron University. When asked when her political career began, Toni unhesitatingly replies, “It started when I was 14, and we were on a 4-H trip called the Citizenship Focus Trip. It was about 300 kids. Our two Oklahoma Senators—one a Democrat and one a Republican—gave a speech. The Democrat said we’d all won a scholarship to come on the trip and he hoped we’d go home, get an education, and run for office someday. I left there knowing I would run for office someday.
“Something else happened on the trip that influenced my life. I thought we were going to go to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home, because this trip had always stopped at Monticello. So, we’re headed home and I’m thinking that we’re going to stop at Monticello. And I asked the adult leaders, when do we stop there? They said we were going swimming instead. One of the adult leaders said that if I could convince 150 kids to go to Monticello instead, we could. I stood up as a 14-year-old child and convinced 150 of my peers, other 14-, 15-, and 16-year-olds, that we should go to Monticello instead of the swimming pool.
When asked when her political career began, Toni unhesitatingly replies, “It started when I was 14, and we were on a 4-H trip called the Citizenship Focus Trip. I stood up as a 14-year-old child and convinced 150 of my peers, other 14-, 15-, and 16-year-olds, that we should go to Monticello instead of the swimming pool.”
And I think that’s when I got a first taste persuading my peers that they needed to do something important.” Toni admits to a “celebrity crush” on Jefferson. “I tell people that if I had a time machine, I would show up on his doorstep and eat his mincemeat pie,” she says. “I am fascinated by George Washington as well. They kept good records, and they were farmers, and inventors, and on top of that, they founded our country.” Toni once took a group of children to the National Archives Museum to see the Declaration of Independence. Children are allowed to camp overnight in the museum. Toni used the chaperone’s prerogative to stake out a spot for her sleeping bag close to the sacred document.
After college, Hasenbeck started out teaching high school and then taught art classes. She took a few years off from her teaching career and worked to open an animal hospital with her husband from whom she is now separated.
“We have three amazing children,” she says. “They’re all artistic and hardworking. We raised our own cows and we would select the best and the kids would show them.” A 26-year-old daughter is a political consultant, while the only son, 23, studied HVAC and is certified. The youngest, a daughter, is a freshman in high school. She shows cattle—of course—and is interested in musical theater.
Before entering politics, Hasenbeck taught art at the Chisolm Trail Heritage Center in Duncan, Oklahoma. “Looking back,” she says, “that was the best work I’ll ever do. We served kids who’d never had any art instruction in their schools, and we would come in and teach them art. It was very rewarding.” She has taught 2nd grade and was teaching 7th grade in Elgin public schools when she ran for office.
What made her run? “This guy comes into my backyard, opens the back door to my house to stand at my dining room table, and says, ‘Let’s talk politics,’” Toni recalls. “I said, ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘I want you to replace me in the state house.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m not a Democrat’. And he said ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or not, you’re a conservative, and that’s what this district needs. I was a registered Democrat for 374 days of my life but I am a Republican again now.’” She lost her first race for the Oklahoma House in 2014 but won in 2018.
“Young people,” she told a reporter, “may not fully grasp the significance of the choices they’re making at the time and may later face distress over the life-altering changes they underwent as a preteen or teenager. The Legislature must continue to help protect kids from rushing into serious decisions that should be made as an adult.”
Hasenbeck resigned from her teaching job to take her place in the legislature, and the faculty and kids at the Elgin middle school gave her a surprise farewell party. It was an emotional gathering with hugs and tears. “Sometimes I wonder if the kids understand my point of view,” Hasenbeck told a reporter. “I want them to survive in a very tough world. Sometimes, in my classroom, I set a very high expectation for their behavior and their work ethic. Some kids don’t understand, some kids really do understand. Probably the ones I hugged the hardest were the ones who didn’t understand at first but then eventually learned that my method is to make them be a strong member of our society.”
When Hasenbeck served as principal author for the bill to ban the surgical alteration of sex characteristics and opposite-sex hormone regimens for minors, she explained that the intention of the legislation was to protect “Oklahoma’s most vulnerable population: children.”
“Young people,” she told a reporter, “may not fully grasp the significance of the choices they’re making at the time and may later face distress over the life-altering changes they underwent as a preteen or teenager. The Legislature must continue to help protect kids from rushing into serious decisions that should be made as an adult.”
She explained the issue more colloquially to IWF. “I’m a 19-year educator and I’ve been a parent for 26 years,” she says, “and sometimes when kids come up with things, it’s important to have a conversation. Sometimes that conversation can lead to realizing maybe they need some help with things.” Hasenbeck went on to share that some students struggle with gender confusion, but she doesn’t believe these children should be encouraged to alter their bodies.
“I’ve heard discussions of parents mishandling this issue that made me think, wow, there’s not been a single adult in this child’s life who was willing to tell them no and be unpopular for a second. So, that was really where this piece of legislation started. My son dressed up as Bob the Builder for two solid years. He would try to wear his Bob the Builder belt underneath his clothes to church. But when he got older, he stopped insisting on wearing his Bob the Builder outfit everywhere. He outgrew it. If a child has undergone surgical or hormone treatment, he or she can’t just outgrow it.
“Sometimes you have to tell your kids no. You’ve got to say ‘No, you can’t have tampon machines in the boy’s bathroom because you think you’re having a period. You are a boy.’ I don’t know where it stops, but sometimes we have to get between adults who are afraid to make good decisions for children if they might be unpopular for five minutes and bad outcomes for the children.
“I do have a tremendous place in my heart to help families that actually have babies born with mixed genitalia. We must do everything we can to help families. But that is different from furthering the idea that today., I’ve decided I want to be a boy when I was born a female. That is delusional.”
Hasenbeck has taken a lot of heat, but she holds onto humor and perspective. “I’m so sick and tired of having people try to tell me that I’m a cis-gendered female,” she says. “And if you could see me in person, honestly, I have blonde hair and wear a gob of makeup. I spend a great deal of time and effort reinforcing my pronouns. And so, I just feel like, if you can’t identify my pronouns, if you can’t figure it out, that’s a problem. I don’t believe in changing the English language to have it suit the needs of five people, or 500 People.”
You can sort of see how she was able to persuade her fellow 14- year-olds to go to Monticello. The women of Oklahoma—and beyond—are fortunate to have such a champion.