Republican lawmakers in Arkansas this week passed a bill barring transgender students who attend public schools from using bathrooms and locker rooms according to their gender identity.
House Bill 1556 would require public schools and open-enrollment public charter schools to only allow students to use “multiple occupancy” restrooms or changing areas that correspond to the “student’s sex as identified on his or her original birth certificate issued at or near the time of his or her birth.”
The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Mary Bentley, said the legislation “simply requires our schools to set up a policy where the boys go to the boys’ bathroom and the girls go to the girls’ bathroom,” seemingly ignoring the state’s estimated 1,800 trans youth under the age of 18.
Critics say HB 1556 would endanger the lives of trans children by outing them at school and subjecting them to scrutiny and bullying.
Earlier Wednesday, the Faulkner County Coalition for Social Justice — a local nonprofit that has “served as a hub for progressive, grassroots justice work in Central Arkansas” since 2016 — urged voters to contact their legislators and ask them “to vote NO on HB1156 to save trans lives.”
The Arkansas arm of the American Civil Liberties Union said HB 1556 doesn’t “solve any problems” and “needlessly” puts transgender youth at risk.
A recent study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Medicine and published in the Journal of Pediatrics in June 2019 found that trans teens face “greater risk of sexual assault in schools that prevent them from using bathrooms or locker rooms consistent with their gender identity.”
“The only thing it will accomplish is to demonize trans kids, make them feel less safe at school, and make their lives even harder than they already are,” Eric Reece, Arkansas state director of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement after the vote. “Schools should be safe and welcoming places for all kids.”
HB 1556 passed on an 80-10 vote. All “no” votes came from Democratic lawmakers. An additional five Democrats voted “present.” The bill now moves to the state Senate for consideration.
House Minority Leader Tippi McCullough, a Democrat, slammed the bill as “a distraction for what we’ve been sent here to do.”
“Instead of focusing on keeping our schools on track, principals, superintendents and teachers will have to worry how to keep their bathrooms in regulation,” she said.
The bill is one of 234 bills introduced in state legislatures across the state so far this year, according to data compiled by the ACLU. Nearly half of them (107) restrict the rights of trans kids in schools — including bathroom restrictions, sports bans and even forcing teachers to out trans students to their families.
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