Toni Hasenbeck

Women's rights legislation
In April 2021, Rep. Hasenbeck revived a bill by Justin Humphrey that would ban transgender athletes from participating in women's sports.[5] She justified her support using trans exclusionary feminist language saying "this is not an anti-transgender bill at all... this is an absolutely pro-female-athlete bill."[6] Rep. Mauree Turner criticized the legislation saying "denying the existence of trans children is absolutely absurd."[6]

After a mid-September 2022 Oklahoma House interim study brought by Hasenbeck, where criminalized survivor April Wilkens's story and others were used to explain the need for new legislation that could give second look resentencing to many currently in Oklahoma prisons,[7][8][9][10][11] she authored and filed HB 1639 in January 2023—a bill that "would allow a survivor to enter into a lesser sentencing range when evidence of abuse has been substantiated."[12] It "offers nuance in sentencing."[13] and the bill was originally called the Universal Defense Act.[14] The Oklahoma attorney general seems supportive of solutions the bill attempts to address.[15] Hasenbeck has said “For whatever reason women have this problem in the court system that they end up with larger prison sentences then typically the men that were producing the acts to lead to the final act."[16] At least 156 women at Mabel Bassett wrote "letters claiming to have experienced intimate partner violence at the time their crime was committed."[17] Colleen McCarty, who has also worked on the bill, says that legislation is necessary because the parole process has not helped April Wilkens and other women.[18] Wilkens, for example, has never been able to "use the evidence of her domestic abuse in her appeal for early release."[19]

On Wednesday, March 1, 2023, the bill passed out of the Oklahoma House Judiciary—Criminal Committee unanimously. The Sentencing Project thanked the members for passing the bill out of committee.[20][21] The committee members included Rande Worthen (chair), Collin Dule, John George, Jason Lowe, Stan May, Lonnie Sims, and Judd Strom.[22] After the bill passed committee, Wilkens was quoted as saying on a phone interview that “So many women in prison with me here have told me just chilling stories about the abuse they’ve suffered too before coming here."[23] It is estimated that, if retroactivity is left in the bill, it could help 100 to 500 women and that data from the "Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice shows from over 40,000 domestic violence calls in Oklahoma County in 2021, fewer than 1,000 arrests were made. Additionally, a study by FWD.us shows 66% of women in Oklahoma prisons experienced intimate partner violence within a year of their incarceration."[24][25] Hasenbeck pointed out that women "can face many forms of coercion in a relationship, including everything from the loss of economic security to the threat of dissemination of non-consensual pornography."[26]

Before and after the bill passed committee, advocates for HB 1639 visited the capitol to speak with legislators and conduct art projects.[27][28] Though the bill passed committee, Hasenbeck did strike the title of the bill, which allows changes to be made to the language still, so who this applies to is not finalized.[29] A similar bill was passed in California.[30]

The bill was voted on in March 22, 2023 and passed the House in a 91-0 vote. However, the retroactivity language of the bill was removed. Cyndi Munson questioned why and Hasenbeck replied it was due to needing to make concessions to get it on the floor for a vote.[31][32] Mother Jones reported that it was to "make the bill more palatable to other Republicans" because the "Oklahoma District Attorneys Council, a powerful lobbying group of local prosecutors, reportedly opposes retroactive relief."[33] The Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice released a statement asking the Senate to add retroactivity back in and saying that often the prosecution of current criminalized survivors tried "to keep out the evidence of the abuse because it was prejudicial to their cases." They were "told the Oklahoma House leadership would not hear a bill on the floor that provided 'retroactive relief' to people in prison. They were, however, amenable to prospective relief for survivors who have yet to enter the justice system [and that] the prosecution and extreme sentencing of survivors is a problem, but [Oklahoma] will only commit to fixing that problem going forward."[34] Many other organizations, such as DVIS and SheBrews and persons involved in the OK Survivor Justice Coalition voiced their concern but hope in the bill.[35] Hasenbeck said "she plans to develop future legislation to expand the Act so that Oklahomans such as April Wilkens...can have a chance at freedom."[36] The associate director and professor at the Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work at the University of Oklahoma, Dr. David A. McLeod, encouraged legislators to add retroactivity back in, citing "upward of 65% of incarcerated women in Oklahoma were in abusive relationships at the time of their arrest."[37] Stephanie Henson, Vice President of the Oklahoma chapter of the League of Women Voters said that HB 1639 would "help modernize our justice system and reduce the number of women who are unfairly punished or receive unnecessarily long prison sentences."[38]

Also in 2023, Hasenbeck and Daniels introduced legislation that would ban trans surgery for children.[39]