Bills targeting transgender bathroom access are floundering

Bills to curtail transgender people's access to public restrooms are pending in about a dozen states, but even in conservative bastions such as Texas and Arkansas, they may be doomed by high-powered opposition.

The bills have taken on a new significance this week after the decision by President Donald Trump's administration to revoke an Obama-era federal directive instructing public schools to let transgender students use bathrooms and locker rooms of their chosen gender.

Many conservative leaders hailed the assertions by top Trump appointees the issue was handled best at the state and local level.

Yet at the state level, bills that would limit transgender bathroom access are floundering, even though nearly all have surfaced in Republican-controlled legislatures that share common ground politically with Trump.

In none of the states with pending bills does passage seem assured; there's been opposition from business groups and a lack of support from several GOP governors. The chief reason, according to transgender-rights leaders, is the backlash that hit North Carolina after its legislature approved a bill in March 2016 requiring transgender people to use public restrooms that correspond to the sex on their birth certificates.

Several major sports organizations shifted events away from North Carolina, and businesses such as PayPal decided not to expand in the state. In November, Republican Pat McCrory, who signed and defended the bill, became the only incumbent governor to lose in the general election.

"We don't need that in Arkansas," that state's GOP governor, Asa Hutchinson, said earlier this month. "If there's a North Carolina-type bill, then I want the Legislature not to pass it."

North Carolina's experience also has been evoked in Texas, where a "bathroom bill" known as Senate Bill 6 is being championed by GOP Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who founded the Legislature's tea-party caucus and oversees the state Senate.

Business groups and LGBT-rights supporters have warned passage of the North Carolina-style bill could cost Texas many millions of dollars and the opportunity to host future pro sports championships.

Mark Jones, a political-science professor at Rice University in Houston, assessed the bill's chances of enactment as "effectively zero."

In Virginia, South Dakota and Wyoming, bills targeting transgender people already have died this year for lack of high-level support.

The South Dakota bill, opposed by GOP Gov. Dennis Daugaard, would have required public-school students to use the locker rooms and shower rooms matching their gender at birth.

In several other states, such as Kansas and Kentucky, bathroom bills remain alive but are gaining little traction.

In Tennessee, two lawmakers promoting a bathroom bill abruptly ended a news conference last week when it was interrupted by protesters, one wearing a T-shirt reading, "You can pee next to me."

There's a bathroom bill pending in Missouri, where an identical proposal didn't even receive a hearing last year. Wisconsin's GOP-controlled Legislature also rejected a bathroom bill last session; its sponsor promises to bring it back this year, even though GOP leaders have not made it a priority.

Other states with pending bathroom bills, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, include Alabama, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, South Carolina and Washington.