12-05-2024
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed a bill prohibiting transgender students in the state from using bathrooms aligned with their gender identity. The new law applies to students from kindergarten through college. While Ohio joins approximately twelve other states with similar laws, this law is broader than most because it includes college students and private schools.
Individuals must define their bathroom use based on whether they were identified as “male” or “female” at birth. Furthermore, schools must designate separate bathrooms, locker rooms, and overnight housing “for the exclusive use by students of the male biological sex only or by students of the female biological sex only.” The law allows schools to mark some facilities for single use (or families). However, they cannot mark “a multi-occupancy facility” as “nongendered, multi-gendered, or open to all genders.” Colleges cannot “knowingly” allow a “member of the female biological sex” to use a male facility or vice versa. While the measure goes into effect in 90 days, it does not include details about potential penalties for violations of it.
Last year, Governor DeWine vetoed a ban on gender transition medical treatments for minors that also included a block for transgender girls and women from playing high school or college sports that matched their gender identity. The Ohio legislature overrode his veto. Senator Sherrod Brown lost his reelection bid in Ohio, and Republican television ads targeting Democrats on issues related to transgender people’s access to bathrooms and involvement in sports may have been part of the reason.
It is unclear whether this measure is legal. The Supreme Court decided not to hear an appeal regarding school policy similar to the Ohio law. President Biden’s administration put in place a regulation that required public K-12 schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms aligned with their gender identity. Several federal judges have issued injunctions on those regulations.