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

[Nevilledog]

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/floridas-trans-bathroom-ban-signed

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:



*snip*