North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) quietly signed a bill into law Tuesday preventing transgender people from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity in certain public spaces – like correctional facilities and public university dorms – making North Dakota the eighth state to enact legislation preventing some transgender students from using bathrooms—and the fifth to do it this year.
The law requires bathrooms or locker rooms in dorms at public state universities, correctional facilities, gender-specific penitentiaries or the North Dakota youth correctional facility be exclusively for males or exclusively for females.
Transgender or gender-nonconforming children, inmates or university students can receive “a reasonable accommodation” as deemed appropriate, meaning they’d need permission to use the bathroom they identify with.
Burgum signed the bill into law Tuesday—though his office didn’t make its approval public until Wednesday—after it had passed the state House and Senate with veto-proof majorities.
Seven states already have similar legislation that require students to use bathrooms that reflect their birth gender: Idaho, Iowa, Okhlahoma, Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky, according to the Movement Advancement Project.
Forbes has reached out to the governor’s office for comment.
Just last week, Burgum signed a bill into law that prohibits physicians in the state from performing gender-reassignment surgeries and from prescribing gender-affirming medication, like drugs that block puberty, with some exceptions for minors already receiving gender-affirming care or those with “genetic disorder[s] of sexual development” who get parental consent. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, Burgum has now signed six bills targeting LGBTQ people into law this session.
Across the country, the ACLU has noted eight bills that would similarly limit access to public accommodations for transgender people this session. Arkansas’ and Idaho’s public accommodations bills have passed, and bills are making their way through the process in Florida (which has two bills proposed), Kansas and Indiana; the only such bill that has been killed was in Iowa, which already has at least one law limiting public accommodations for students.
Only three Republicans, including Rep. Eric Murphy, voted against their party when the bill was going through the House, according to AP, which also reported that in an interview after the bill was signed, Murphy said: “I don’t try to be polarizing. I just don’t think there was a need for the legislation.” The other two Republicans who crossed party lines were Rep. Cindy Schreiber-Beck and Rep. David Richter.
North Dakota limits bathroom use for transgender people (AP)
North Dakota governor signs transgender bathroom bill (The Hill)