Florida's Trans Bathroom Ban Signed: Arrests To Follow Regardless Of Legal Gender Status

Governor Ron DeSantis signed several anti-trans bills today. One of these bills, a bathroom ban, is likely to lead to many arrests of transgender people in bathrooms.

Today, Ron DeSantis posed with several children as he signed multiple laws targeting the transgender community. One law expands “Don’t Say Gay” to the 12th grade, bans books, and bans updating pronouns, making transition in a school environment much more difficult. Another uses obscenity laws to potentially target drag events, which has already led to pride parades being cancelled. Yet another bill bans gender affirming care for trans youth and bans nurse practitioners — the providers of nearly 80% of gender-affirming care — from treating trans adults. The most troubling bill, though, is a ban on transgender people in bathrooms that comes with criminal charges and jail sentences. The wording of the ban raises serious concerns that many transgender adults are in imminent danger of arrest once the law comes into effect.

House Bill 1521 will effectively give second-class citizen status to transgender people in Florida. The wording of the bill states that if a cisgender person is in the bathroom with a transgender person, an employee can tell the transgender person to leave. Should the transgender person not leave immediately for any reason, they will be charged with criminal trespass, which can carry sentences of up to 1 year in jail - likely a jail of the wrong gender identity, which will put trans people in immense danger of sexual assault.

While the provisions do not ban all bathroom usage, they cast a wide net over an alarming number of locations that would fall under definitions of “public” in the bill. This includes all buildings owned or leased by any governmental entity, educational institutions spanning from elementary schools to private colleges and universities, numerous hospitals owned by universities, many sports arenas, convention centers, city parks, beaches, airports, and more.

You can see the provisions on public bathrooms here:

Prohibition on bathroom usage with criminal trespass penalties.

Many transgender people erroneously believe they will be exempt from this law due to updated gender markers and birth certificate changes. The Florida bathroom ban specifically defines sex in a way that does not utilize legal sex or birth certificate sex. Instead, it states that sex is determined by this law as “indicated by the person’s sex chromosomes, naturally occurring sex hormones, and internal and external genitalia present at birth.” It then defines male and female based on reproductive capacity.

As a result, enforcement might involve criminal investigations into transgender people’s sex based off of profiling alone. Transgender people may be forced to undergo genitalia exams, DNA testing, and historical investigations if they are accused of violating the bathroom ban.

See the definitions used for sex in this law here:

Definitions of sex used for the bill.

The bill will result in many arrests of transgender people based on the wide range of places that it applies to as well as the lack of knowledge on how sex is defined and will be applied. Worse, many transgender people will risk arrest by going into the bathroom that the state law requires trans people to enter. Transgender people who are androgenous or pass as their gender identity will likely be challenged in the bathroom of their birth sex. Those trans people will then be forced to undergo the same investigation into their gender. In essence, it amounts to a ban on bathrooms for transgender people entirely.

Due to the way that laws go into effect in Florida, the bathroom ban will go into effect on July 1st - the day after Pride Month.

The bathroom bill would be bad enough, but DeSantis signed three other anti-trans bills into law as well. One of the most problematic of those bills is a ban on most gender affirming care for transgender adults. Senate Bill 254 bans gender affirming care for trans youth and bans nurse practitioners from providing gender affirming care to trans adults. SPEKTRUM Health, a provider in Florida, has indicated in an exclusive interview with Erin In The Morning that up to 80% of all gender care in the state is provided by nurse practitioners - a statistic in line with information provided by Planned Parenthood.

Already, people are losing access to medication in Florida and Lana Dunn of SPEKTRUM Health has stated that transgender people are having appointments cancelled by medical organizations around the state. This is because unlike the bathroom ban, which goes into effect July 1st, SB254 has an immediate effective date. Due to penalties provided by SB254, many medical providers have determined they can no longer provide that care.

Medical appointments are not the only thing being cancelled - a third law signed by DeSantis is an obscenity law that will likely be utilized to go after pride parades and drag. Senate Bill 1438 has an immediate effective date and has already led to cancellations of pride events, including the Treasure Coast Pride Parade.

The final law signed by DeSantis was House Bill 1069, a Don’t Say Gay expansion, attacks trans and queer people in new ways. Transgender people will not be able to share updated pronouns with their classmates and students. It will also allow for challenging of books in libraries that have LGBTQ+ topics and will expand existing Don’t Say Gay provisions to the 12th grade. This will go into effect on July 1st.

The effective dates of these laws are as follows:

• HB1521 - Bathroom Ban - Effective July 1, 2023

• HB1069 - Don’t Say Gay Expansion - Effective July 1, 2023

• SB254 - Trans Youth Ban, Adult 80% Care Ban - Effective Immediately

• SB1438 - Obscenity Law Targeting Drag - Effective Immediately

Collectively, these laws represent a direct affront to the liberties of transgender and queer Floridians, marking the most radical assortment of laws targeting transgender people ever ratified by any state. The bathroom ban, in particular, if permitted to take full effect, may serve as an ominous blueprint for other states that have exhibited an interest in passing anti-transgender legislation this year. Given the escalating, heated rhetoric and increasingly draconian laws that typically gain traction across the nation after Florida's endorsement—a pattern we have observed consistently over recent years—it's plausible that such a bathroom ban will emerge as a legislative template in 2024.

As it stands, transgender Floridians are unwittingly stepping into a perilous landscape, and if the law is vigorously enforced, the impending surge of arrests will likely take everyone aback in the coming months.