Gov. Brown signs gender bathroom bill

Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 1266, by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, which would require a student to be permitted to use the male or female bathrooms and locker rooms in public schools, based on the student’s gender self-identification.

With the serious issues facing California today, it’s interesting Brown gave this bill even a moment’s notice.

This law requires California public schools to allow students, as young as kindergarteners, to use bathrooms, showers, locker rooms, and other facilities based on their “gender identity” and not biological sex.

AB 1266 will also allow transgender children to participate in school sports teams of the sex in which they identify.

“More specifically, Assembly Bill 1266 would allow a male high school senior who identifies himself as a female, not only to play on the girl’s basketball, volleyball or field hockey team, but also to change, dress, and shower in the girl’s locker room,” Breitbart.com said. “Conversely, the law would provide identical rights to females who self-identify as males.”

“This is terrific. The Governor’s signature represents an important victory, not just for my bill, but for a whole movement for the rights of transgender people,” Assemblymember Ammiano said in a statement. “We had children testify in the Assembly and Senate that this law will mean they no longer must hide who they are, nor be treated as someone other than who they are.”

I’m not so sure this is terrific. Even the Los Angeles Unified School District  acknowledged Ammiano’s “legislation cannot anticipate every situation that might occur with respect to transgender and gender variant students.”

I wrote about Washington State, which already has a law similar to AB 1266 in, “Bill advances ‘civil rights’ claims on gender-neutral bathrooms“:

 “Washington State passed such a law in 2006, and has run into a big problem.

“Parents in Washington state became outraged last year when their young daughters, who participate in their local swim club, discovered a male sitting naked in the sauna ‘displaying male genitalia,’” the Christian News Net reported last fall. However, police and school representatives of Evergreen State College alike said there wasn’t anything they could do about the situation because of state law.

“The transgender ‘student’ is 45 years old.”

What about non-transgender students?

“Foremost among the bill’s many shortcomings is its complete disregard for the privacy of the vast majority of students who are not transgender or gender-questioning,” Pacific Justice Institute said. They waged a fight against AB 1266.

“These students (and their parents) have reasonable expectations that they will not be forced to share intimate spaces with members of the opposite biological and anatomical gender. There are no safeguards whatsoever in the legislation that would allow responsible adults, including coaches, teachers, chaperones, school administrators and others to act in the best interests of all students.”

“We at Pacific Justice Institute stand ready and willing to defend anyone who will be victimized as a result of this new law,” said Brad Dacus, President of Pacific Justice institute. “That includes someone whose privacy rights are violated in the bathroom, in the locker room, in the showers, or someone who is prevented from playing on a sports team because someone from the opposite gender took their place.”

Many legal ramifications

I covered many of the legal reifications in “Bill advances ‘civil rights’ claims on gender-neutral bathrooms.”

Ammiano’s bill establishes no standard to determine the veracity of a pupil’s claim to a particular gender identity. Without establishing any standard, the determination will be left to the pupil who may claim any gender identity at any time for any reason.