Victory!

Out of over 25 bills in states trying to ban us from using the bathrooms, two states have defeated the anti-trans legislation.

Bill to force transgender students to use bathroom of biological sex dies in House committee
Richmond Times Dispatch
By Graham Moomaw
Posted: February 9, 2016

A controversial bill that would require transgender students at Virginia public schools to use the restroom and locker room of their biological sex was killed by a House of Delegates subcommittee Tuesday on a 8-13 vote.

The bill, House Bill 781, gained wide attention this year after critics suggested it would require school employees to check students’ genitals. The bill’s patron, Del. Mark L. Cole, R-Spotsylvania, dismissed those suggestions as false, saying the proposal was meant to protect students’ privacy and ward off lawsuits against local school boards.
[…]
The bill died in the Republican-controlled committee on a bipartisan vote.

That was a surprise! Especially since it had bipartisan support, I must admit I expected it to pass and I didn’t think any Republicans would vote against the bill.

The other victory was in Washington state,

'Bathroom bill' aimed at transgender persons fails in state Senate
Seattle PI
By Joel Connelly
February 10, 2016

The Washington state Senate, on a 25-24 vote, has defeated legislation that would have repealed a new rule allowing transgender people to use restrooms and locker rooms of the gender with which they identify.

"Thank God the bill died," Sen. Kevin Ranker, D-Orcas, wrote on his Facebook page after the vote.

Conservative Republican legislators, and allies in such groups as the Family Policy Institute, have made limiting civil rights of transgender teenagers a major objective in this year's session of the Legislature.

They have attacked a recent rule by the state's Human Rights Commission that transgender persons can use public restrooms of their choice.

SB 6443, sponsored by Sen. Doug Ericksen, R-Ferndale, would have repealed the rule and forbade the Human Rights Commission from again taking up the issue.  It cleared committee last week and reached the Senate floor on Wednesday.

Other states report that they have not had any problems with their gender inclusive non-discrimination law.

Transgender threat? Other states don’t see an issue
The Daily News
By Tom James
February 10, 2016

Late last year, the Washington State Human Rights Commission ruled that transgender Washingtonians have the right to use bathrooms matching their chosen gender identity. Citing privacy concerns, Republican lawmakers have since put forward at least six bills seeking to repeal the ruling, with several aiming to also prohibit the committee from taking action on the issue in the future.
Officials in Nevada, Oregon and Hawaii say that similar rules in the three states haven’t been linked to any crimes. Two cases cited by a Republican lawmaker as justification for the bill took place in Toronto, under rules different from those in Washington.

Soon after the Washington commission ruling last year, an uproar arose when Kitsap and Pierce County YMCAs notified their members that they would be complying with state law by allowing transgender people to use the locker rooms and shower facilities of their choice. At the time, critics warned the change would inevitably lead to abuse of the rules by men hoping to gain access to women’s locker rooms. Critics repeated the claims at public hearings for the bills in Olympia in recent weeks, at least two of which drew crowds that packed hearing rooms to capacity, and led lawmakers to limit the time for individual remarks.
[…]
Officials in three nearby states with similar protections in place, however, said they hadn’t heard of the rules being abused that way.
[…]
“I’ve never heard, even from opponents, a specific example of an instance of sexual assault” where the perpetrator claimed protection under the rules, Hoshijo [executive director of the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission] said.

Hawaii has had rules protecting transgender bathroom access in place for 10 years.

Oregon has had similar rules in place for nine years. Charlie Burr, a spokesman for the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, said the agency would have heard of complaints or crimes related to rights protections, and that it also hasn’t received or heard of any.

A Las Vegas police department spokesman said that the department has seen no rise in sex crimes relating to protections for transgender bathroom access since rules there went into place in 2011. The most recent check on the issue was performed in 2014, said the spokesman.

And what about the incidents in Toronto?

A University of Toronto spokesperson said the details of the case were more nuanced than Warnick’s narrative. The crimes took place in unisex shower facilities, not women’s bathrooms to which the perpetrators had gained access by posing as transgender, according to the spokesperson.

So once again the opposition twists the facts, it wasn’t a trans person and it was a women’s locker room… minor details not worth mentioning.