COLUMBUS, Ohio – More than 20 Ohio House Republicans signed onto new legislation that would block transgender students from using school bathrooms or locker rooms that align with their assumed gender identity.
The bill, introduced Tuesday, marks House Republicans’ latest legislative attack on transgender Ohioans. Earlier this month, a House committee passed legislation that would block transgender students from competing in women’s sports. A different House committee is reviewing legislation that would block physicians from prescribing various gender affirming care treatments for transgender minors.
House Bill 183 would apply to both K-12 schools and colleges. It requires them to segregate locker rooms, bathrooms, showers, and similar facilities by “biological sex,” as determined by one’s birth certificate. Schools would not be allowed to permit transgender students into the facilities designated for their assumed gender identity. K-12 students also would not be allowed to share overnight accommodations with a member of the opposite biological sex.
The legislation would still permit schools to allow transgender students to use single-occupancy facilities. It was sponsored by GOP Reps. Beth Lear, of Galena, and Adam Bird, of New Richmond.
The Ohio action is a piece of a larger GOP mobilization against transgender rights. Dozens of Republican states have passed bills aimed at transgender athletes, transgender minors seeking care, and transgender students’ bathroom use. Congressional Republicans passed a transgender athletes ban as well in April, although the legislation is likely to die in a Democratic controlled White House and U.S. Senate.
HB183 has not yet been assigned to committee.
Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer reached out to the bill’s sponsors. Bird said it’s not an anti-trans bill so much as it is a “protection” bill and a “matter of safety.” He said bathrooms are a private place where people should feel safe with members of the same sex.
Speaking about the wave of proposed restrictions for transgender people more broadly, he compared the current proposals to more tried-and-true ideas like prohibiting minors from using carcinogenic tobacco products or indoor tanning machines.
“If you’re not opposed to us prohibiting suntan use as a teenager, then why should we allow your body to be mutilated?” he said.
This marks the first time lawmakers have introduced a “bathroom bill” in Ohio, according to Kathryn Poe, a spokesperson for Equality Ohio, which advocates for LGBTQ rights. Poe said this marks the latest showing of conservative lawmakers’ inability to “mind their own business” instead of “surveilling” public spaces.
“I think that our lawmakers have just decided to get on this national bandwagon of hate,” Poe said. “This bill is just a continued attack on trans youth.”
In 2016, a since-retired Ohio House Republican floated the concept of introducing a transgender bathroom ban, claiming it would be a public safety measure to “prevent sexual predators from posing as transgender.” He never formally introduced the idea, which emerged as a rash of Republican-controlled states followed the lead of North Carolina and began to introduce similar “bathroom bills.” (Only North Carolina’s passed that year, according to NBC News.)
The ACLU of Ohio, via spokeswoman Celina Coming, pledged to fight the bill.
“The anti-LGBTQ faction of the Ohio General Assembly has proven yet again that they will stop at nothing to harass, intimidate, bully, and discriminate against trans people,” she said. “HB183 is another copy and paste bill, brought by far-right extremists to push a national agenda. Ohioans do not want this. Ohioans did not ask for this. We are outraged by these relentless attacks and will work tirelessly to stop HB183 from gaining traction.”
Outside the statehouse, a federal court in Ohio is reviewing a lawsuit brought by students and parents against Bethel Local District School, a deeply conservative township near Cincinnati. There, the school board deemed that federal law required it to allow transgender students to use the bathroom of their assumed gender identity. Some Christian and Muslim plaintiffs alleged the policy violates their rights to free exercise of religion. Nonreligious plaintiffs joined them as well.
The ACLU moved to intervene in the case on behalf of a 14-year-old transgender girl, arguing the court’s ruling would inevitably impact her in a “deeply personal, tangible, and potentially harmful” manner. They argued that ruling for the plaintiffs would in effect endorse a stigmatizing message that there’s something inherently wrong with transgender students.
The lawsuit is ongoing.
Jake Zuckerman covers state policy and politics for Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.