“So never judge a book by its cover
Or who you gonna love by your lover
Sayin’ love put me wise to her love in disguise”
“Dude Looks Like a Lady” — Aerosmith

The story behind the 1987 Aerosmith hit stems back to the big hair era of the 1980s...

Having not met him before, Aerosmith front man Steven Tyler initially thought Motley Crue’s lead singer Vince Neil was a woman from behind, due to his long blond hair. The rival band also inspired the use of the word “dude” in the song, a term that wasn’t as well-known at that point.

The song reached No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and had even more success in the United Kingdom, reaching No. 4 and being certified as gold.

The song has been featured in multiple films and is one of the staples of the longtime band’s most iconic and heavily requested songs during live tours.

The song is about exactly what you think it’s about, with Aerosmith songwriter Desmond Childs saying that he took the idea of Tyler and steered it into a story song about encountering a transsexual woman at a strip club.

Childs has defended the song against those who claim transphobia over the years, insisting that as a member of the LGBTQ+ community himself, he would not have “allowed” the group to put together a song that was bashing gay or trans lifestyles.

Our own predetermined ideas of gender roles have been extremely culturally influenced across the world.

In some countries, you’ll see a woman coaching a men’s sports team and no one says a thing about it. In other countries, a woman doing any work outside the home beyond “pink collar” jobs (nursing, teaching, child care, secretarial work, etc.) is scandalous - or even illegal.

Raising girls, I’m glad to be in a world where they can explore what they enjoy in life. The last few years, I’ve had the opportunity to enjoy watching my daughters wrestle in the state youth wrestling championships. I also know that they’d prefer if enough girls were wrestling to allow for them to always have fellow girls to wrestle against, rather than wrestling against boys their same weight as they’re at an age where there’s a level of discomfort with a member of the opposite sex being in a wrestling position.

What on earth would a song about a trans stripper or gender roles have to do with our 2024 South Dakota ballot? Well, that’s why we’re here; to examine Constitutional Amendment E.

Governor Kristi Noem outlined her desire to have language in the state’s constitution changed to remove gender-specific language from the constitution. The Senate in Pierre issued a joint resolution in 2023 that passed both houses and was then assigned to the 2024 ballot.

So what would be changed?

There are multiple areas in the document that would see changes.
In Article IV, Section 3, referring to the duties of the governor of the state, multiple spots where the language states that “He may…” or “He shall…” will be replaced with “The Governor may…” Similar changes will be done in the same article, Section 5, referring to the duties of the Lieutenant Governor.

References to the governor are the primary changes in Article IV, Section 8, and in Article V, Section 5. The first non-gubernatorial reference that will be changed is in Article V, Section 6, regarding the qualifications of Supreme Court justices.

Multiple language changes are proposed to change language referring to a justice as “he” are changed to simply “the justice.” Similar changes are done throughout Article V to change language about the justices of the Supreme Court.

The change in the constitution that directly speaks about the “common person” in the state begins in Article VI, Section 3, referring to freedom of religion and the prohibition of the support of religion.

The change in this section alters language that assures that no one can be denied civil rights due to personal religious opinions - changing the word from “his” opinions to “the person’s” opinions.

Similar changes are proposed to other individual rights from outlining voting requirements to protection in land sales that are outlined in the constitution.

In all, by my count of the changes listed on Ballotpedia, there will be 45 alterations made to the language within the constitution of the state.

I typically try to keep my opinion portion of these ballot measure reviews limited to one or two paragraphs and focus most of the article on the merits to both sides of the measure. There are those who say that the constitution should not be changed and that any “reasonable” person can understand that the language in the document applies to all sexes equally.

Except that’s exactly the sort of argument that has been used to disenfranchise people for centuries.

Presuming that a law covers or protects a particular group while having that particular group still be discriminated against or even punished for their sexual, racial, or religious affiliation (among others) is exactly why we have the amendments that we do to the United States Constitution to give women the right to vote, to protect the rights of minority groups in voting and in business, and so many other things.

Rather than having someone need to sue the state because someone used the state’s constitution as reasoning for denying individual rights to a woman, this is a rare proactive step by South Dakota.

In fact, if Amendment E passes, South Dakota will be only the tenth state to use gender-neutral language in its state constitution.

The other states involved are all across the political spectrum, so it’s not a red/blue, left/right thing, with Utah the last state to approve a ballot measure to make language in the state’s constitution gender-neutral in 2020.

With the outrage posted recently by members of this community and this state over a female-since-birth athlete who competed in boxing at the current Olympics, denying someone rights based on assumptions and misunderstandings is still more than possible locally and state-wide.

Encouraging gender-neutral language in the Constitution doesn’t just allow for the Governor’s office and other offices to be referred to without using gender.

It intentionally extends rights to all genders within the state, something that simply makes common sense to do.