Kentucky State Senator C.B. Embry proposed a bill?to punish schools who allow transgender students to choose the restroom that correlates with their gender identity instead of the one that matches the gender they were assigned at birth.
Bill 15RS SB76, entitled the “Kentucky Student Privacy Act,” would allow students who witness a transgender student using the restroom that aligns with their identified gender to sue that school for $2500. The proposed bill reads as follows:
“AN ACT relating to the physical privacy of students and declaring an emergency.
Create new sections of KRS Chapter 158 to ensure that student privacy exists in school restrooms, locker rooms, and showers; require students born male to use only those facilities designated to be used by males and students born female to use only those facilities designated to be used by females; identify consequences for using facilities designated for the opposite biological sex; identify the Act as the Kentucky Student Privacy Act; EMERGENCY.”
The bill stems from controversy over Louisville’s Atherton High School, where a transgender student requested and was granted by the school board in an 8-1 vote the right to use the bathroom designated for female students. That decision was upheld by an oversight committee. Embry argues that parents were unhappy with the decision and contacted the Family Foundation of Kentucky?to complain.
The bill would not only punish schools in which staff and faculty permit transgender students to choose a bathroom but also would punish schools in which they?failed to take measures to prevent transgender students from doing so. It would also apply a blanket measure across the state instead of allowing schools and school districts to address issues of student diversity on their own.
Chris Hartman, director of the Fairness Campaign in Kentucky, calls this “a solution without a problem.” Hartman also notes that this is in direct violation of Title IX, which prohibits discrimination against a student on the basis of sex.
To date, no sexual assaults, acts of violence, or other criminal acts against cisgendered students have been reported as a result of a transgender student using a restroom designated for people of his or her identified gender. Transgender students, on the other hand, have disproportionately been victims of violence and are at much greater risk for suicide. Perhaps the students we should be concerned about are the ones who are actually suffering.
