Arkansas governor signs bill restricting bathroom use by transgender students in schools

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a bill Tuesday that would ban transgender people from using school bathrooms that don’t match the gender listed on their birth certificate. This is the latest in a series of legislative efforts led by the Republican Party to restrict LGBTQ rights in schools.

The bill, passed by the state legislature earlier this month, covers restrooms, locker rooms and showers. It allows superintendents, teachers and principals to be fined a minimum of $1,000 if they fail to comply with the law, which applies from preschool through senior year of high school, in public and public-private schools (a school that is paid with public money, but organized by a private group for a special purpose).

The measure takes effect at the end of the summer, Sanders’ office said. The law requires that “multi-occupancy bathrooms or changing rooms” be used by people of the same sex “as identified on their original birth certificate issued at or around the time of their birth,” the law says.

Accommodations must be provided for those who would be prohibited from using the facilities under the law, according to the bill, but these accommodations cannot include “access to a restroom or changing room designated for use by members of the opposite sex to an individual while members of the individual’s opposite sex are present or may be present”.

“The governor has said she will sign legislation that focuses on protecting and educating our children, not indoctrinating them, and believes that our schools are no place for the radical left agenda,” Alexa Henning, a spokeswoman for Sanders, told CNN . “Arkansas is not going to rewrite the rules of biology just to please a handful of far-left advocates,” she added.

Republican State Representative Mary Bentley, who sponsored the bill, said on Facebook that the legislation is “how we restore our biblical values ​​to our nation” and told the CNN that “will keep Arkansas kids safe and comfortable in their bathrooms.”

But Melanie Willingham-Jaggers, executive director of GLSEN, an organization that works to create non-discriminatory classroom environments for LGBTQ students, told CNN that Arkansas politicians are using “trans and non-binary kids as political pawns.”

“These bathroom bans hurt students’ academic performance – and educators are held accountable for student success. Discriminatory policies affect more than just grades: LGBTQ+ students who experience discrimination, such as being banned from using the restroom, report higher levels of depression and lower self-esteem.

Enforcing these laws would be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming for schools and extraordinarily invasive for transgender students,” said Willingham-Jaggers. And Eric Reece, state director of the Arkansas Human Rights Campaign, called the new law “another despicable effort by extremist politicians to alienate children who are just trying to get through their childhoods.”

“By preventing children from using restrooms in line with their gender identity will do nothing to create jobs, reduce costs or make life easier for Arkansas families,” said Reece. “This bill should never have made it to the governor’s desk, and she should be ashamed of signing it.”

Sanders, a former press secretary for President Donald Trump, has signed a flurry of controversial bills since taking office in January, including repealing a slew of child labor protections across the state and restricting drag shows. in public, and prohibiting the use of the term “Latinx” in official government documents.

Now, Arkansas joins a growing number of states that have passed bans on transgender bathrooms in recent years. Republican Governor Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma signed a similar bill last year that was challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union in court.