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.
