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Republican Indiana senators on Tuesday approved a bill aimed at prohibiting transgender students at public K-12 schools and state universities from using restrooms or locker rooms that match their gender identity.
Provisions of Senate Bill 182 would require those schools and universities to designate multiple-person restrooms, locker rooms, and changing areas for use only by males or females based on their reproductive biology at birth.
Supporters described the bill as helping protect the safety and privacy of women and girls, while opponents argued its restroom requirements would increase bullying of transgender youth and force transgender men into women’s restrooms.
Bill author Sen. Liz Brown, R-Fort Wayne, said during the Senate debate that the proposal allows “women to continue to have their private spaces.”
“We’re not singling anyone out. You can continue to identify any which way you want,” Brown said. “But if you’re born a male, you’re going to the male bathroom. Pretty simple. You’re born a female, going to the female bathroom.”
The Senate endorsed the bill in a 37-8 party-line vote, sending it to the House for consideration.
Protesters denounce bill
About a dozen transgender-rights supporters gathered outside the Senate chamber ahead of the vote and argued that the bill would lead to more harassment of transgender people.
Emma Vosicky, the executive director of GenderNexus, criticized provisions that would allow anyone “who is directly or indirectly injured” by an alleged violation of the restroom restrictions to file a lawsuit against the school.
“The opportunity for the bounty is just going to feed the desire for some people to think that they are the gender police, which means anybody who’s dressed in a way that doesn’t perfectly conform with what our social structure says,” Vosicky said.
The new proposal follows state legislation approved in recent years limiting transgender medical procedures for those younger than 18 and prohibiting transgender youths from taking part in girls school sports teams.
Republican Gov. Mike Braun also issued an executive order last year prohibiting what he called “modern gender ideology” by state agencies.
The bill also toughens the restrictions on changing the sex designation on a birth certificate. It would limit such changes to a “medically verifiable genetic or physiological disorder of sex development.”
Restroom impact debated
Sen. Shelli Yoder, D-Bloomington, argued against the bill, saying its requirements would force transgender men, often with beards and other masculine features, into women’s restrooms.
Yoder said the bill encourages “a vigilante culture that targets everyone.”
“It’s an invitation for strangers to police the bodies of everyone, including women who are not transgender,” she said. “By mandating these bans, the state is encouraging a culture of harassment.”
Erica O’Connell, an attorney with the conservative group Alliance Defending Freedom, testified in support of the bill last week, arguing that someone’s sex should not be based on a “person’s subjective sense of gender identity.”
“Women and young girls deserve to have their privacy and dignity safeguarded in the spaces where they are most vulnerable,” O’Connell said.
Andre Hardy was among those who protested against the bill on Tuesday.
“I’m a transgender man, and I do not belong in the women’s restroom,” Hardy said. “I do not want to be in the women’s restroom.”
Hardy said he could face situations of not being allowed to use a men’s restroom: “I deserve the human right to use the bathroom.”
The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, nonprofit news organization that covers state government, policy and elections.
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