Virginia legislator files ‘bathroom bill’

Like N.C.’s, it specifies restroom use by sex at birth; passage seen highly unlikely

RICHMOND — A Virginia legislator has filed a bill to regulate transgender people’s use of public restrooms in schools, highway rest stops and other government buildings — a proposal akin to a controversial North Carolina law.

The legislation from Republican Delegate Robert Marshall goes further than the North Carolina measure in one regard: It requires school principals to notify all parents if a student at their child’s school asks to be treated as a member of the opposite sex — whether by being allowed to use a different bathroom or being addressed by a different name or pronoun.

Marshall said his Physical Privacy Act addresses a pressing social concern about student safety — one that, he noted, drew hundreds of parents to school board meetings on the subject in Prince William and Fairfax, Va. He expressed fear that men and boys will pretend to be transgender to infiltrate bathrooms and locker rooms used by women and girls.

“Some guys will use anything to make a move on some teen-age girls or women,” he said. “Mere separation of the sexes should not be considered discrimination.”

The proposal drew immediate condemnation from legislators and organizations supportive of gay and transgender rights, with Equality Virginia calling it “hateful and discriminatory.” Few predicted it would pass into law.

Even Marshall said leaders of his own party are unlikely to embrace the bill given its potential to turn off moderate Republican and independent voters ahead of this year’s elections for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.

“My intuition, based on experience, is the speaker’s going to want to duck this,” Marshall said, referring to House Speaker William Howell, a Republican.

A spokesman for Howell, Christopher West, was highly dismissive.

“That’s just Bob being Bob,” West said. “He knows the House doesn’t operate that way.”

Even if the bill passed the GOP-controlled General Assembly, it would face a sure veto from Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe.

“Governor McAuliffe has been clear that he will veto any bill that restricts the rights of Virginians based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” McAuliffe spokesman Brian Coy said in a written statement. “As we saw in North Carolina, these bills don’t just hamper civil rights — they kill jobs. The Governor is hopeful that Republicans in the General Assembly will drop these counterproductive bills and turn their focus toward building a stronger and more equal Virginia economy.”

James Parrish, executive director of Equality Virginia, said the bill “would cause immediate harm to our transgender community and economy. Forbes estimates North Carolina lost $600 million due to HB2 [that state’s law]. With a billion-dollar budget shortfall in our own state, a priority of the General Assembly should be protecting investments in transportation, education, and jobs, not unfairly targeting our transgender community.”

Democratic state Sen. Adam Ebbin, a vocal proponent of gay and transgender rights, said Marshall’s bill would be highly burdensome.

“I personally know one transgender man who, though born a woman, now has a full beard, shaved head, deep voice and a bulky build,” he said. “It would create much more controversy to require him to go into the ladies’ room without Bob Marshall telling him where he has to go to the bathroom.”

Under Marshall’s bill, any government entity that owns or rents a building would have to ensure that restrooms and changing facilities “provide physical privacy from members of the opposite sex.” The bill states that “sex” means “the physical condition of being male or female as shown on an individual’s original birth certificate.”

The bill notes that it does not prohibit a government entity from providing “an accommodation, including the use of a single-occupancy restroom.”

One of the most outspoken conservatives in the General Assembly, Marshall often rankles GOP leadership with bills to regulate social issues — which just as often die in committee. Among Marshall’s other bills this year is one that would declare pornography a public health hazard.

The restroom bill comes as the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case filed by transgender student Gavin Grimm, now a senior at Gloucester High in Gloucester, Va., who sued the School Board in 2015 after it passed a policy barring him from using the boys bathroom. In April, a federal appeals court ruled in Grimm’s favor, citing the position in President Barack Obama’s administration that such bathroom restrictions are a violation of Title IX, which bars sex discrimination in public schools. But the incoming Trump administration may stake out a different position, in which case the Supreme Court could remand the case to a lower court.

Legislatures around the country have clashed over transgender issues in recent years. North Carolina’s so called “bathroom bill” ignited a firestorm, causing businesses like PayPal and Deutsche Bank to abandon expansions and prompting the NCAA and NBA to relocate games. The bill also spurred a series of lawsuits, including dueling suits filed by the state and the Justice Department.