Bossier Parish In Louisiana Advances Criminal Trans Bathroom Ban With Up To 6 Months In Jail

Trans people could face up to six months in prison if they use a bathroom on municipal property that differs from their sex assigned at birth.

Bossier Parish Community College // Billy Hathorne

Bossier Parish’s Police Jury—the equivalent of a county executive board, but with different naming conventions—voted on July 15 to advance a criminal ban on trans people using restrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms on municipally owned land. This would impact government properties like libraries, parks, and courthouses.

“The Bossier Parish ordinance sets three penalty levels for violations,” the Shreveport-Bossier City Advocate reports. “A first offense can carry a fine up to $250, a second offense can carry a fine up to $500 and up to 30 days imprisonment, and a third or subsequent offense can carry a fine of up to $500 and imprisonment for up to six months.”

It also turns any municipal employee into a sort of mandatory reporter, who must police which people enter a gendered bathroom.

“Any employee observing a violation shall request that the individual leave the facility designated for the opposite biological sex,” the ordinance reads, as per The Advocate. Exceptions are made for maintenance crews or caretakers assisting a person with a disability. It also would not apply to schools, private businesses, or facilities owned by the federal or state government, as they are overseen by other entities.

Meeting minutes are not yet posted, so Erin in the Morning could not independently verify this phrasing, but The Advocate further reports the policy adopts its definitions of biological sex from the 2024 Women’s Safety and Protection Act, which declares that sex is based on the sex gametes (sperm or ova) a person “has, had, will have or would have, but for a developmental or genetic anomaly or historical accident.”

How a bathroom spectator can reliably verify personal medical information remains unclear; Police Juror Jimmy Cochran told Erin in the Morning “biological sex” could be substantiated with one’s birth certificate, but this document is not generally carried around. And if someone is wrongfully arrested for the bathroom they enter, because someone wrongfully guessed their sex assigned at birth? “That’s what they got the court system for,” Cochran said.

Louisiana does not have a statewide bathroom ban for government buildings. Still, Bossier Parish isn’t the only locale to go above and beyond a state law to restrict the bathroom usage of transgender people. In 2024, the City Council of Odessa, Texas, passed an ordinance granting private citizens the right to sue anyone they believed to be a transgender person in the “wrong” bathroom. The policy never went into effect due to a technical error.

Members of the Bossier Parish Police Jury told Erin in the Morning that the ordinance was crafted in concert with, or even at the behest of, Sheriff Julian Whittington.

“There was nothing on the books for him to do as law enforcement, so that’s why he asked us to do it,” Glenn Benton said in an interview. “All the sheriff is trying to do is protect young ladies from predators that want to dress up and go into the female locker room or dressing room.”

It is a dangerous myth that trans women are using women’s restrooms to commit sex crimes. There have, however, been numerous instances of law enforcement intervention gone awry in states with and without bathroom bans on the books, even in instances where individuals used the bathroom aligning with their sex assigned at birth.

Transgender women have been targeted by law enforcement over bathroom usage in states like Florida and Texas. Meanwhile, in South Carolina, law enforcement apprehended a transgender man because he used the women’s restroom at a bar. In Boston, hotel security accosted a cisgender woman using a bathroom because they falsely assumed she was assigned male at birth, and a cisgender woman in Arizona had male police officers sicced on her for using a Walmart women’s room. She resorted to showing police part of her breasts to convince them she did, in fact, belong there.

Whittington’s office could not provide comment in time for publication of this piece.

“This is more of the same from our local governments, which is just a repeat of violence perpetrated by ignorant bigots within the community, reinforced by local law enforcement and then codified into rules by our local legislators,” said Bobby Woodruff, an organizer with the Shreveport-Bossier chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. They told Erin in the Morning the group is mobilizing on the issue to push back against local instances of violence against members of the transgender community.

The final vote for Bossier Parish’s transgender bathroom policy is slated for Aug. 5.