A bill that would restrict which bathroom transgender people can use in public schools was pulled from the state Senate floor Thursday so an amendment could be added related to restrictions it would place on overnight school trips.
The development came a day after a senator filed a separate bill that would make it a crime in some instances for adults to use restrooms that don't correspond with their sex at the time of their birth if a minor is inside.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Jonesboro, pulled House Bill 1156 from the Senate floor on Thursday to offer an amendment before it comes up in the Senate at a later date.
The bill, which passed the House last week and cleared a Senate committee on Wednesday, would require public schools and open enrollment public charter schools to restrict people from using a restroom that does not correspond with the sex listed on their birth certificate.
HB 1156 applies to places at schools where people "may be in various stages of undress in the presence of other individuals." It would apply to multiple-occupancy restrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms and shower rooms.
Sullivan agreed to amend the bill after Sen. Jimmy Hickey Jr., R-Texarkana, raised concerns about a provision in the bill on overnight trips.
The bill would ban students traveling on school-sponsored overnight trips from sharing "sleeping quarters with a member of the opposite sex" unless it is with an immediate family member. Hickey worried the bill would bar a student from sleeping in a private room during an overnight trip.
The bill's House sponsor, Rep. Mary Bentley, R-Perryville, said the bill meant to provide privacy for students who may not want to share a bathroom with a transgender student. Critics call it an attack on trans youth in the state.
Bentley has pointed to a provision in the bill that calls for schools to provide a "reasonable accommodation to an individual who is unwilling or unable to use a multiple occupancy restrooms or changing area designated for the individual's sex."
[DOCUMENT: Read Payton's bill filed Wednesday » arkansasonline.com/217sb270/]
"It very simply states that girls will go to the girls' bathrooms and boys will go to the boys' bathroom," Bentley said during the bill's hearing in the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday.
Sen. Greg Leding, D-Fayetteville, spoke against the bill on the Senate floor Thursday, saying it would "put more kids at risk" by further stigmatizing already vulnerable trans students.
The bill would also prohibit schools from adopting a policy for bathrooms contrary to the one outlined in the bill. Superintendents, principals and teachers could be subject to a minimum fine of $1,000 and possible further discipline from the Professional Licensure Standards Board for not complying with the law.
Sullivan said the state Department of Education will come up with rules to help with enforcement of the bill.
RESTROOMS AND MINORS
Senate Bill 270, sponsored by Sen. John Payton, R-Wilburn, would expand the definition of "sexual indecency with a child" to include entering a "public changing facility that is assigned to persons of the opposite sex while knowing a minor of the opposite sex is present in the public changing facility."
In addition to restrooms, the bill defines "public changing facilities" as including places where "a person may be in a state of undress in the presence of other persons," such as locker rooms. The bill would not apply to private changing rooms at clothing stores.
The bill defines sex as "objectively determined by anatomy and genetics existing at the time of birth." The bill would exempt those entering the restroom to provide medical assistance.
Violation of the law would be a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $2,500.
Sen. Dan Sullivan leaves the well after presenting the bathroom bill in the Senate. Sullivan said rules for enforcing the bill would come from the state Education Department. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Staci Vandagriff)