There was a showdown in Houston last fall. This spring, North Carolina became the battleground. By now, confrontations have flared across the country over whether to protect or curtail the right of transgender people to use public restrooms in accordance with their gender identity.
The upshot, in virtually every case, has been emotional debate over privacy, personal safety and prejudice.
Many of those who favor limiting transgender rights contend that expanding anti-bias protections to bathrooms and locker rooms raises the risk of sexual predators exploiting the laws to molest women and girls on those premises.
Transgender-rights advocates consider this argument malicious and false. They say that 18 states and scores of cities have experienced no significant public safety problems linked to their existing laws allowing transgender people to use bathrooms based on the gender they consider themselves to be.
On Monday, the U.S. Justice Department weighed in, suing to overturn North Carolina’s new law restricting transgender bathroom access and warning that any similar measures elsewhere in the country could also face challenges on grounds they violate federal nondiscrimination rules. North Carolina has sued to keep the law in place.
Washington state is among the many jurisdictions with ongoing debate over bathroom access. Conservative activists are gathering signatures with hopes of putting a measure on the November ballot that would override state and local protections against gender-identity discrimination in public accommodations and require public schools to restrict transgender students’ bathroom and locker room access.
“Stand with us as we stand to protect women and children from this dangerous rule,” says a group pushing the ballot measure, in its online appeal for volunteers and donations. The group is called Just Want Privacy, reflecting the view that opposition to the laws goes beyond safety concerns for some.
Among those supporting the current rules and opposing the ballot initiative is John Lovick, former sheriff of Snohomish County.
“We’ve protected gay and transgender people from discrimination in Washington for 10 years, with no increase in public safety incidents as a result,” he said. “It’s important to remember that indecent exposure, voyeurism, and sexual assault, are already illegal, and police use those laws to keep people safe.”
A current sheriff, John Urquhart of the Seattle area’s King County, also defends the existing law. “I’m the father of two daughters. I’m not concerned,” he says.
On the other side of the country, similar arguments are percolating in Massachusetts, which — despite its liberal tendencies — is not among the states banning discrimination against transgender people in restrooms and other public accommodations.
A bill to do that is advancing through the state legislature this spring. The state’s Republican governor, Charlie Baker, has not committed to signing the bill if it reaches his desk but has said he opposes discrimination in any form.
To assuage critics who say male sexual predators might take advantage of the proposed change by claiming to identify as female, language has been added to the House version of the bill to allow legal action against anyone who makes an “improper” claim of gender identity.
Some critics of the bill were unimpressed by the addition, citing concerns about privacy.
“It still offers no protections to women and children who don’t want to be eyed by or exposed to naked men in locker rooms or other intimate spaces,” said Jonathan Alexandre, legal counsel for the Massachusetts Family Institute.
In South Carolina, lawmakers considered — but did not approve — a bill that would have required transgender people to use public bathrooms based on their biological sex. In opposing the bill, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said it addressed “a nonissue.”
