South Dakota social conservatives can now add this feather to their cap: They have succeeded in targeting transgender students for derision by banning them from using the restroom consistent with their gender identity.
The GOP-led South Dakota Senate passed House Bill 1008 Tuesday by a 20-15 vote, sending it to GOP Gov. Dennis Daugaard's desk. Unfortunately, Daugaard's never even met a transgender person (or at least not that he knew of).
Gov. Dennis Daugaard says that without having met a transgender person he could be faced with deciding whether to approve a measure that limits their access to public facilities. [...]
“I have not met a transgender person that I’m aware of," Daugaard said in a news conference Thursday. [...] He said that based on what he has heard, it sounds like a good bill for maintaining student privacy.
Great, so we've got the ignorant leading the ignorant. The things Daugaard has "heard" likely come from guys like this: Rep. Scott Craig, an evangelical minister who refers to gays as "the sexual deviant" (the heartwarming reference comes around 5:40 in the vid.). Craig sponsored both HB 1008 and another anti-LGBT bill, HB 1107, "religious freedom" legislation that would legalize discrimination against LGBT people.
Gov. Daugaard will now be getting a lot of pressure from both sides of the debate and though he signaled tepid support above, he has not been particularly outspoken on the matter. Some advocates remain hopeful that he'll steer clear of putting South Dakota schools in the position of violating Title IX and facing a revocation of federal funding.
But look, folks, this is potentially a big problem for reasons I describe at length here. Social conservatives likely hope to use this law to challenge a series of Department of Education rulings that have sided with transgender student rights. The Arizona-based "legal ministry" Alliance Defending Freedom has offered to defend the state if someone challenges the new law under Title IX or otherwise.
And just whose interests will that Christian legal organization be defending—the people’s?
