A proposed law to ban transgender people from using school restrooms and other facilities that align with their gender identity is heading to Gov. Jeff Landry’s desk after the Senate overwhelmingly passed it on Thursday.
In addition to school restrooms and changing rooms, House Bill 608, which passed in a 29-10 vote, would separate prison and domestic violence shelter bathrooms and sleeping quarters based on sex assigned at birth.
All-gender, single-occupancy restrooms or changing spaces would still be allowed under the proposal.
The bill appears likely to become law with Landry, a Republican who has championed the idea, in office. Last year, Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards vetoed several measures that targeted the LGBTQ+ communities.
The controversial measure resembles legislation passed in other red states that has been panned by LGBTQ+ advocates, who say such measures only serve to stigmatize the already-vulnerable transgender community.
“This bill will only create more fear in the transgender community about bathrooms,” said Peyton Rose Michelle, executive director of Louisiana Trans Advocates. “As a trans person who utilizes public bathrooms...I already get nervous about it.”
Proponents, including Landry and Attorney General Liz Murrill, who have filed suit against the federal government over a policy that would prohibit the law’s implementation, say such rules are meant to protect women and girls in vulnerable spaces.
"It is deeply gratifying that our legislature has codified what has been understood since time immemorial: there are two sexes, male and female," the bill's main author, Rep. Roger Wilder III, R-Denham Springs, said in a statement. "Now our laws will comport with the ability to protect our mothers, wives and daughters from intrusion of their private spaces."
State Sen. Beth Mizell, R-Franklinton, presented HB 608 on behalf of Wilder on the senate floor.
The bill is “basically saying girls are girls, and boys are boys” so that “when my 9-year-old granddaughter goes to the bathroom she can have some expectation that in that bathroom will only be other girls,” Mizell said.
Most Democrats opposed the bill in their votes on the Senate floor, with Sen. Royce Duplessis of New Orleans questioning whether the measure would truly prevent bad actors from entering restrooms to cause harm.
“If a person wants to go into a bathroom, male, female or trans, this will not stop them,” Duplessis told Mizell. “To me, this seems like once again we’re going out of our way to target a particular group of individuals.”
The legislation could run afoul of new federal rules that prevent discrimination against students based on their sexual and gender identity. The U.S. Department of Education say Title IX prohibits such discrimination.
Landry, state Attorney General Liz Murrill and state Education Secretary Cade Brumley have panned those rules, which they have challenged in a lawsuit against the Biden administration.
Much like supporters of HB 608, Murrill and Landry argue the federal rules put woman and girls at risk in bathrooms and locker rooms.
After the vote, Corrine Green, a trans activist from New Orleans, expressed disappointment that more Democrats didn't debate the issue on the floor. Other LGBTQ+ rights advocates shared concerns that the bill could open the door for the state to restrict bathroom use in other public places, not just in schools, prisons and domestic violence shelters. That’s because it because the bill defines the terms “male” and “female,” and requires state agencies to apply those definitions.