Florida And Arkansas Pass Adult Trans Bathroom Bans Out Of Committee

Both Florida and Arkansas advanced bills out of committee today that target transgender adults and charge them with crimes. This comes 7 years after HB2, the ill fated North Carolina bathroom ban.

Representative Rachel Plakon introducing HB1521, a bathroom ban for trans adults.

Seven years ago, North Carolina enacted House Bill 2, prohibiting transgender individuals from using restrooms that correspond with their gender identity. This legislation resulted in significant negative consequences for the state and its residents before ultimately being overturned. Its failure likely hindered the anti-trans movement for years. Recently, however, some states have begun revisiting policies that exclude transgender individuals from using restrooms that align with their gender identities. While the majority of these bills focus on transgender students in schools, Florida and Arkansas today reviewed legislation that would criminalize restroom use by transgender adults. Both states' anti-trans bathroom bans, which propose potential jail sentences for transgender adults using the bathroom of their gender identity, passed their respective committees, marking one of the most substantial escalations in anti-trans policy this year.

Arkansas’ bill, SB270, would make transgender people entering into the bathroom at the same time a minor is present guilty of a sex crime. Although the bill is particularly bad, a last second amendment proposed by opponents narrowed the bill to only conduct “with the intent to cause sexual desire in themself or others.” While this gives transgender people some level of defense should they ever be arrested for the crime of using the bathroom, it still will result in extensive harassment and abuse of trans people in Arkansas. Proponents in many states have argued that being trans is in and of itself inherently sexual. This bill passed out of the House Judiciary committee as amended today and will go to the full House floor.

Florida’s bill, HB1521, goes a step further. It does not require a minor to be present. Instead, it gives every cisgender person in a bathroom the power to tell a transgender person using the restroom according to their gender identity to leave. If the transgender person does not leave, they can then be charged with a misdemeanor. It would codify into law the idea that trans people are second class citizens and force them to bend to the whims of any discriminatory cisgender person wherever they go. The bill passed the House Regulatory Reform & Economic Development Subcommittee.

See the Florida provision here:

Criminal bathroom ban portion of Florida HB1521

Both of these bills cruelly target transgender people in bathrooms and could lead to unintended consequences. Although proponents of these bills often talk about transgender women, transgender men also exist. Often, these transgender men may be muscular, have facial hair, and exhibit stereotypically masculine characteristics. These men would be forced into female bathrooms - something that would put them at obvious risk of arrest just for following the law. One such man testified in Arkansas to this effect, stating, "If this bill passes, I would be charged with sexual indecency with a minor in the men's restroom. If I go into the women's restroom, women might be frightened or angry and call the police on me. Then the police may arrest me for that too."

These bills can also lead to increased violence and targeting of cisgender women who display masculine traits. We know that cisgender women are often targeted in places where transgender people in bathrooms may face higher scrutiny. See this recent video where a cisgender woman was harassed in a Las Vegas bathroom:

@nottherealtraceydelaney @TraceyDelaney

This woman was harassed in a casino bathroom by an individual who repeatedly asked her to prove she wasn’t transgender. @RampartCasino has been ignoring calls from the victim @creatingjayrose who wants answers

Both of these bathroom bans are the closest we have gotten to policing adult transgender people in bathrooms since HB2, a bill that banned transgender people from bathrooms in North Carolina. Due to that ban, dozens of companies pulled their business. Paypal pulled out of a planned move into the state, as did Deutsche Bank. The NBA All-Star Game famously also moved venues out of the state in 2017. The AP estimated that the ban cost the state nearly $4 billion in lost revenue. The following years, very few anti-trans bills passed, leading to the modern conservative strategy of starting with sports and targeting business friendly states with the initial anti-trans bills.

Although these bills are unique in how they target adults, it is important to note that trans youth and teachers in schools are already dealing with bans in several states. According to the Movement Advancement Project, 6 states ban transgender youth from using the bathroom in accordance with their gender identity. In these states, trans kids are often forced to hold their pee in, leading to UTIs rather than risk embarrassment and harassment in a bathroom that doesn’t match their gender identity.

Now, all transgender people in these states could be forced to carefully plan out their days so that they are never far from home or a safe, private, gender neutral bathroom. The use of a “urinary leash” has a long history of use against populations that the government seeks to keep under control - the term originally comes from the availability of public restrooms only to men in Victorian England. Transgender people already face ridicule and harassment in bathrooms without the threat of law. Bills like these could criminalize their very existence.

This legislation intensifies the discrimination already experienced by transgender individuals, representing a harsh development in how they are targeted by lawmakers this year. During hearings, proponents appeared to dismiss the dignity of transgender individuals as a concern, instead portraying them as threats to others. In an era when some far-right political figures depict transgender people as "demonic," "evil," and deserving of "eradication," bills like these further perpetuate discriminatory reasoning. Bills like this are just one way that lawmakers are trying to erase transgender people from public life.