Ohio Governor Signs Bathroom Restrictions for Transgender Students

The state is one of at least a dozen states to set restrictions on bathrooms for transgender students at public schools.

Transgender students in Ohio, from kindergarten through college, will be prohibited from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity after Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, signed a bill on Wednesday imposing the restrictions. Ohio is among at least a dozen states in recent years to adopt laws setting restrictions on bathrooms for transgender students at public schools.

Passage of the Ohio bill comes as transgender issues are increasingly seen by Republicans as an effective tool to divide Democrats, and some Democrats are worrying that their party’s support of trans rights may be a political liability.

Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio was one of several Democrats to lose races this year after being targeted in Republican television ads referencing transgender people’s access to bathrooms and involvement in sports. Earlier this month, after Sarah McBride became the first openly transgender person elected to Congress, Republicans in Congress moved to bar transgender people from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity on Capitol Hill.

The Ohio measure goes beyond several other states’ laws regulating bathroom use by transgender people by extending the restrictions to individuals over the age of 18, and by including private schools and colleges. The law classifies individuals as “male” or “female” based on how they were identified at birth, and requires schools to designate separate bathrooms, locker rooms and overnight accommodations “for the exclusive use by students of the male biological sex only or by students of the female biological sex only.’'

Schools may designate facilities for single-use or for families, the law says, but are prohibited from providing “a multi-occupancy facility that is designated as nongendered, multigendered, or open to all genders.’' The measure says that higher education institutions may “not knowingly permit” a “member of the female biological sex” to use a facility designated for males, or vice versa. The measure, which is to take effect in 90 days, does not include penalties or other details of how it should be enforced.

Last year, Governor DeWine vetoed a measure that bans gender-transition medical treatments for minors and blocks transgender girls and women from participating on high school or college sports teams that match their gender identity. However, his veto was overridden. The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio had urged the governor to not sign the bathroom measure, saying in a statement that it “ignores the material reality that transgender people endure higher rates of sexual violence and assaults, particularly while using public restrooms, than people who are not transgender.”

State Senator Jerry C. Cirino, a Republican who sponsored the bill, has said that it is “about safety and security.”

Federal appeals courts have issued mixed rulings on the constitutionality of school policies barring transgender students from using bathrooms that align with their gender identities. The Supreme Court declined earlier this year to consider an appeal of one of those cases. And federal judges have blocked new Biden administration regulations that would have required public K-12 schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms that match their gender identities.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard arguments in a challenge by a transgender student and an L.G.B.T.Q. high school student organization to Idaho’s law requiring students to use the bathroom that matches their sex identified at birth. The court has yet to issue an opinion.

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