The Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act

Recently, the issue of allowing transgender people access to public facilities according to the gender they identify with has caused much debate throughout the United States. The bathroom bill seeks to control access to public facilities of transgender individuals, based on the gender they were assigned at birth. In 2015, bills were passed stating entering a bathroom not assigned to a person at birth was a crime. Surrounded by misconception, the bill does “not legalize harassment, stalking, violence, or sexual assault.” Since the bill arose, there have not been a rise in violence or other incidents in the states protecting the transgender rights (Transgender Equality). The bill simply states if one is living as a woman, to use the women’s restroom,

In recent years, the United States has been struggling to pass transgender rights, and Texas is of no means of an exception. Some of these include bathroom rights. In Texas, the bathroom bill passed through the Texas Senate, but did not survive through the Texas House, resulting in a temporary halt. Even now, the government still question the rights. It is suggested that Texas may need a bathroom bill, but would probably end in some kind of financial consequence, along with many Americans losing their jobs. The Texas Bathroom Bill, otherwise known as SB6, could also fuel disunity within our nation and cause several riots.

The Bathroom Bill states that a person must use the restroom that corresponds to their biological sex or, as the bill defines it, “the physical condition of being male or female, which is stated on a person's birth certificate” (S.B.

Transgender rights and policies have always been an ongoing debate. In the article, “Bathroom Battlegrounds and Penis Panics,” Schilt and Westbrook (2015) argued that in order to push gender equality forward, we must consider the rights of transgender people by allowing them to have access to bathrooms that support their gender identity rather than their biological sex. In doing so, authors believed that it would make progress in alleviating discrimination against transgender people. However, in this conscious effort to fight for transgender rights and their access to sex-segregated spaces,

House Bill 2, also referred to as the bathroom bill or HB2, was passed into law as the Public Facilities Privacy and Securities Act. There is so much more to this recently passed law than allowing transgendered people to access there bathroom of choice. HB2 sets a certain criteria for who may, or may not be protected against discrimination. A person is only protected from discrimination of the information on their birth certificate and their religion. Sexual preference however, is not protected by state law, and it has never been. This law also removes the standard minimum wage set by a city or county that is imposed on private employers. Schools that depend on federal education funding could be affected by HB2. NC state law requires students to use bathrooms according to their gender. The federal government has a law that does not allow discrimination in any school program, and it also covers sexual preferences under it’s sexual discrimination clause. This law is a disgrace to what the fore fathers of this country clearly stated in the Declaration of Independence.

Kansas passed a bill on Wednesday, March 16, 2016 that denies transgender students from using the restroom, as well as other facilities retaining to gender “when they are in various states of undress” (Committee on Federal and State Affairs, page 1; sec. 2; subparagraph b; lines 8-12), based on their preferred gender and forces them to use the restroom based on their birth sex. This bill was passed by the Committee on Federal and State Affairs in order to protect the privacy of students and to prevent “potential embarrassment, shame and psychological injury to students” (Committee on Federal and State Affairs, page 1; sec. 2; subparagraph f; lines 27-29). This bill also allows for students to sue a transgender student for two-thousand five hundred dollars if they are found in the “wrong” restroom. Forcing the transgender students in Kansas to use the restroom based on biology is wrong because forcing someone to disregard a personal preference to accommodate another is inhumane and has potentially deadly effects.

hb2 is a new law ongoing in North carolina. It removes protections for gay and lesbian workers. Permitting an employer to fire them for their love interest. And also requires transgender individuals to use their assigned birth sex bathrooms. Cities in North Carolina are also now not allowed to enforce their own anti discrimination protection laws.

In 2015 The North Carolina House passed a bill now referred to as the “Bathroom Bill”, legally known as North Carolina HB2. The direct implications from North Carolina HB2 is that people regardless of current or identifying genders, must use the public bathroom that correlates to the gender on their birth certificate. (“HOUSE BILL DRH40005-TC-1B”) HB2 has been pushed by its supporting lawmakers as a protection on the usage of public bathrooms. Lawmakers claim that the bill is made to protect cisgender individuals, those born to their gender, from transgender individuals, from harassment in the bathroom setting. Yet, there have been zero recorded cases of a transgender individual

When it comes to the HB2, it is not going against transgender human beings, it is simply keeping citizens in the community safe. For example, a man could say that he was transgender and called himself a female just to get into the woman’s bathroom and sexually assault a woman or a child. No matter what anyone says, most women tend to be frightened when they are with or around a strange man. For example, in the essay “Just Walk On By: Black Men and Public Space”, it talks about how Staples and a young woman were walking in the same direction on a sidewalk at night. When the young woman realized that Staples was behind her, she instantly became frightened, which is understandable. The young woman began to walk faster trying to get away from Staples not grasping that he wasn’t going to hurt her. Eventually, the woman was out of sight and away from Staples. Even though the essay “Just Walk On By: Black Men and Public Space” does not talk about bathroom safety itself, it does show how people feel harmed by others looks and who is around them because of stereotyping. For women and children, the door is always open for the possibility to become sexually assaulted. With this law passed, it gives women and children a small sense of relief. Supporters of the HB2 stand up for their rights and say that HB2 “defends religious liberty and protects girls in public restrooms

These kind of people want to and will try to make someone’s life as hard as possible simply because they see this subject differently. The simple, daily task of using the bathroom is a breeze for any typical person. Unfortunately, this task comes across as a intimidating adversary to a trans person simply because one can be conflicted with which restroom to use. For many trans people, entering a gender-specific bathroom can be a source of stress and anxiety, because using the restroom can mean very real health and safety concerns. Harassment of trans people in and around gender-specific bathrooms can range from denial of use to police intervention to verbal threats and physical assault.

In comparison, the transgender community is facing legal issues with a new bill in North Carolina and Mississippi that requires them to use the bathroom of the gender they were born into. In addition to this, it takes away legal protection for people who identify as LGBT, allowing for legal discrimination. The percent of people who identify as transgender is 0.3% in the United States as of 2011.

TIME magazine in April 5, 2016, in North Carolina, the law passed recently became the first state law in the country limiting transgender people to use the bathroom corresponding to the sex on their birth certificates, also excluding LGBT people from anti-discrimination protections, plus blocking municipalities from passing their own anti-discrimination rules. (Dalesio, 2016)

However, President Donald Trump is moving to reverse Obama-era guidelines on transgender students' right to use the bathroom of their choice in public schools to no rights at all (Kennedy). Certain schools give transgenders the right to choose the bathroom that they're comfortable in, while in other schools, it is necessary to be on a sex-reassignment plan and to have your sex legally renamed in order to use the bathroom you wish. Yet, there are problems which occur in this, “Schools can only require an assertion of gender transition. Requiring a diagnosis or treatment before a student is considered transgender may be unfair to lower-income students without access to such options, advocacy groups say” (Blad). One thing that many don't consider is the setting of income in which these students have. Another issue is that President Trump’s opinions on transgender students has lost federal protections that allowed them to use school bathrooms which match their gender. “In several cases, schools have opted to allow transgender students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity, but complaints from parents or others in the community have prompted schools to reverse their policies” (Kennedy). Even though some parents may be worried of danger involving creeps and predators, it is important to take into consideration the safety

However, If HB2 was never brought to light, then the state of North Carolina would have been one of the first states allowing the right of opposite sexes to utilize opposing bathrooms according to their gender whether in a public business, or a school environment. This could have led to several frustrations in society, one being that it takes away the initial right of other individuals that finds it offensive and unnatural to allow a male and female to use a common restroom at the same time. It’s so much more than just that in hind sight when looking at the issue of opposing sexes using a common bathroom. It’s the thought of allowing a male that was born as that natural gender to later in life decide he wants to be a female without proper surgery, to use a female’s bathroom. Although this may be part of normalcy in this day and age; I could see how this would offend an aged male that was brought up in a traditional background that has daughters and would rather not have his daughters in a bathroom with a transgender. It’s not necessarily taking their right away to use bathrooms, or limit their way of life but to

The House Bill 2 has become a huge topic these past few months with its main hot button issue being the accessibility of public bathrooms to the transgender community. For those whom are unfamiliar with the bill it was created and issued by North Carolinas governor, Pat McCrory. The bill focuses on sticking to the gender norms of public and business owned bathroom. Thus making it illegal for someone whom identifies as a different gender than they sex they are born with to enter the bathroom that they see fit. One of the points that McCrory tosses around in order to keep HB2 in a positive light is that it will help protect the women and children in the community from “predators.” Well how does this bill work when it is applied to public schools in North Carolina were children are the main concern? The answer is that it does not work at all. For now, the previous policy for public school bathrooms are going to stay the same thanks to the federal government, but when applied to schools it becomes a toxic environment for everyone who is not cis gendered.