An Ohio House committee heard from the Republican sponsors of a bill to require K-12 and college students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond to the gender on their birth certificates. Lawmakers heard misinformation about the issue and questions about the prevalence of the problem.
The 17-page bill would ban schools from allowing students to use bathrooms, locker rooms or other accommodations that don't correspond to their "biological sex." The bill notes that schools are permitted to set up single-occupancy facilities "at the request of a student due to special circumstances." The lawmakers note there's no funding in the bill to build those facilities, but schools can allow students to use bathrooms reserved for faculty or in school clinics.
In their testimony and answers to questions before the House Higher Education Committee, the bill's sponsors brought up anecdotal stories of students deliberately going into opposite-gender spaces. They talked about an NCAA transgender athlete in Kentucky and an incident in a YMCA locker room in Xenia, but didn't mention the trans person involved was of public indecency. They also mentioned pornography, child sex trafficking and gender transition treatments.
Sponsoring Rep. Adam Bird (R-New Richmond) said the bill is needed because some courts have ruled on so-called "bathroom laws," and the Biden administration in 2022 issued a directive that trans students can use the bathroom they feel corresponds with their gender identity. That directive was blocked by a federal judge in Tennessee after 20 Republican attorneys general, including Ohio's AG Dave Yost, brought a lawsuit.
"The legislative branch needs to weigh in on this issue. The current leaders in the federal executive branch have given guidance to schools on this issue," said Bird. "The judicial branch has issued rulings, and I believe that it's time for the legislative branch in Ohio to make law on an issue that is very important to the parents in Ohio."
But Democrats pushed back on the need for the bill.
"I genuinely am wondering, on a college campus where mass shooters