Ohio ‘Bathroom Bill’ to undergo transition
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – The “Bathroom Bill,” or House Bill 183, in the Ohio Statehouse will be changed this week.
The bill, sponsored by Representatives Adam Bird (R-New Richmond) and Beth Lear (R-Galena), would require K-12 public schools, chartered nonpublic schools, and institutions of higher education to designate specified restrooms for students of the male or female biological sex.
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“I think Ohioans really believe in this bill, they want this bill,” Bird said.
Rep. Joe Miller (D-Lorain) is a ranking member of the Ohio House Higher Education Committee where the bill is being heard. He said the bill is not helpful.
“It’s just discriminatory in nature,” Miller said. “The goal is not to make bathrooms safer for anyone.”
Bird said the sub-bill that is being introduced on Wednesday has four main differences.
The bill changes the definition of biological sex to align with other bills in the statehouse. Right now, HB183 defines it as “the condition of being either female or male, and the sex listed on a person’s official birth record.”
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Bird said the new version will define it the same way it is written in House Bill 68, which reads, “The biological indication of male and female, including sex chromosomes, naturally occurring sex hormones, gonads, and nonambiguous internal and external genitalia present at birth, without regard to an individual’s psychological, chosen, or subjective experience of gender.”
The bill also adds exemptions for custodians or someone responding to an emergency to enter a bathroom that does not align with their biological sex.
The new version of the bill would also prohibit the construction or maintenance of any all-gendered restroom at these schools. That does not include single-use family restrooms.
“The university or the K-12 school would have to change its labeling, change its use and they can easily do that,” Bird said. “They can change signage on a restroom.”
“My question is — what’s the problem? If you don’t want to use an all-gender restroom, don’t use it,” Miller said.
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Right now, the bill said those schools “shall not permit; a student of the male or female biological sex to use a bathroom that does not align with their sex;” the new version changes the wording to “knowingly permit.”
“There was concern that if you have the language ‘shall not permit’ that a school would have to enforce by posting a guard or posting a faculty member or staff members of some kind in front of the restroom,” Bird said.
Bird said that change means it is up to whoever is using the restroom and sees that someone is breaking the law, to report it, then school officials will have to act on that knowledge.
“This, I think, is easily enforceable in K-12; it becomes a little more difficult in colleges and universities,” Bird said.
Bird thinks the sub-bill addresses concerns, but Miller said the changes do not do anything to make the bill better.
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“We went from horrible to bad,” Miller said. “It’s not like we’re going after an aggressive group, a very powerful group. We are going out of our way to spend valuable time and effort to be as hateful to probably one of the most vulnerable groups in Ohio.”
Miller said he thinks the bill solves a problem that does not exist and said it targets trans youth and adults.
“Understand that they’re not taking away your rights by saying, May I use the stall in the room that fits my gender,’” Miller said.
Bird said the intent of the bill is to keep Ohioans safe, adding that he hears from superintendents and constituents that this issue is important to them.
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“They do not want biological males in the girls’ restroom, and they don’t want biological females in the boys’ restroom,” Bird said.
On Wednesday, the Ohio House Higher Education Committee will have sponsor testimony on the bill to formally introduce the sub-bill. No public testimony and no vote is scheduled for it this week.
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