Kentucky's legislative session ended Tuesday. And with it, State Senator CB Embry, Jr.'s bill calling for the state to pay students to bully transgender students out of school restrooms ended as well.
We are elated that his mean-spirited legislation has failed and congratulate The Fairness Coalition for their tireless work to defeat the bill. Denying students access to bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with who they are is cruel. It is also illegal, as it violates Title IX’s anti-discrimination provisions as interpreted by the United States Departments of Justice and Education. This bill would have hurt already-vulnerable transgender students who regularly face bullying and other forms of harassment. TLDEF will continue to speak out against legislation designed to put transgender students in harm’s way.
--Michael Silverman, Executive Director, Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund
In Florida
The Bradenton Herald reports that there was not time Monday to hear the Senate bathroom bill in the Criminal Justice Committee, which would ban transgender people from using the restrooms suitable for their gender unless they have state documentation proving their new gender.
Some other bills were put on the agenda for next Monday's Criminal Justice Committee meeting, but not Sen. Charlie Dean's SB 1464. If SB 1464 is dead, as now expected, with it dies Rep. Frank Artile's HB 583.
Dean's bill actually did not address gender, rather banning "entering a public facility with the intent to harass or engage in harassment, lewd behavior, assault, battery, molestation, rape, or voyeurism."
Dean has finally come to the conclusion that those things are already banned.
I feel we have adequate statutes covering issues of safety.
--Sen Dean
Artiles' bill has passed two house subcommittees and is a response against Miami Dade passing transgender protections in public accommodations.
Artlies claims the Miami ordinance can be used as a pretext to commit a crime: a man would put on a wig and a dress, say they’re transgender and gain entry into a woman’s restroom to commit various offenses.
Opponents of the bill pointed out that committing those offenses is already illegal.
CRESTON: Now some people may think this bill only applies to bathrooms but this would reach down into public schools as well, wouldn’t it?
ABORAYA: It would, and in fact I spoke with an Orlando family who has a transgender 5-year old. I spoke with the mother worried about what will happen in high school when her transgender daughter will have to use the faculty bathroom.
“And I’m thinking that’s a really good way to mark my kid. Here’s somebody who’s different, here’s somebody who’s other. Maybe it’s not gonna happen in elementary school, but if we mark her as different now, you know what’s gonna happen in high school.”
--WLRN
Meanwhile adults in Virginia have
voted a transgender fourth grader out of the girls room.
Hartwood Elementary School in Stafford County originally accommodated the transgender student, allowing her to use the girls room in accordance with recent guidance issued by the Department of Justice in re: the application of Title IX to protect transgender youth in schools. But students parents complained. Some of the parents formed a mob group called Save Our Schools which brandished their torches and pitchforks testified that their children were at risk from "predatory individuals."
One parent went as far as to suggest that the school was inviting bullying, rape, sodomization, and possibly death.
One parent testified that outside the hearing SOS members were calling the child an "undisciplined freak."
The transgender student’s father, Jonathan Adams, also testified. He admitted to having some of the same misconceptions when the child he thought was his son insisted she was a girl. “And then I watched my little girl grow up,” he said. Adams proclaimed that he was “very proud to have a special little girl,” and implored others “not to trade understanding for fear or trade misconceptions for hate.”
The SOS response to that? "Burn
her him IT!"
Eventually the school board voted 6-0 to restrict the transgender child's bathroom use.
One hopes the federal government will drop the hammer on these folks...and show that Title IX really does protect transgender students.