The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) passed 25 years ago with bipartisan support. It was meant to raise awareness about the vicious cycle of domestic violence and martial resources to assist victims and prevent its spread.

As the 25th Anniversary of VAWA is marked this year, Congress remains committed to fighting domestic violence. Yet that doesn’t mean the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act (VAWA) passed on the House floor last week deserves support.

In fact, those committed to preventing violence against women should be fighting for the best possible version of VAWA. But it takes political guts to do so. VAWA has been so politicized that anyone who raises concerns with any aspect of it is immediately branded as “anti-woman.” Who wants to cast a vote against the law protecting women from violence? Certainly not white, middle-aged men constantly accused of being out of touch with women. A female politician questioning VAWA is immediately attacked as a traitor to women. VAWA today is a political weapon.

VAWA isn’t just being used as a political weapon in the public relations game. This latest reauthorization of VAWA shows the law has strayed far from its original purpose in order to advance a different political agenda. The 1994 version was a criminal justice bill focused on how law enforcement and the court system responded to domestic violence. It focused on protecting women, because women were overwhelmingly the victims in these cases.

This 2019 version of VAWA no longer prioritizes the comfort and safety of women victims. The bill would allow biological males to access and use female-only domestic violence shelters, putting the safety of the women and young girls in those shelters at risk. A woman who has just narrowly escaped an abuser probably won’t welcome sharing her sleeping quarters with a biological male. The bill could also enable male prisoners to be housed in women’s prisons.

This latest reauthorization of VAWA also flatly refuses to help victims of female genital mutilation (FGM). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates over half a million women and girls are at risk of female genital mutilation (FGM) in the United States.