Must have the plumbing changed as reflected on drivers license or passport. End of identifying as a man or woman under the Planet Fitness rule.
After a two hour hearing, a House panel Tuesday cleared legislation cast as “common sense” by proponents, but vocally opposed by the transgender community, which says it’s discriminatory.
The bill (HB 583) makes it a second-degree misdemeanor for someone to use a single-sex restroom if it does not match the gender on that person’s driver’s license or passport.
It has become the most contentious measure during the early parts of legislative session, with hours of testimony during its first two committee stops.
It is sponsored by state Rep. Frank Artiles, a Miami Republican, who says his top goal is public safety. He is specifically taking aim at a Miami-Dade County law that he says is overbroad, and will allow heterosexual men access to women’s bathrooms.
“I believe it gives the cover of law for a pedophile or a sexual deviant … to have access to a facility they would not have access to, but for a local ordinance like Miami-Dade,” he said.
His bill would only allow people to use restrooms that match their gender at birth, or if they underwent gender transformation surgery and that is reflected on their driver’s license or passport.
Some opponents argued the bill would actually hurt public safety by forcing women who look like men into the women’s bathroom, and men who look like women into men’s bathrooms.
“If you send me, or women like me, into the men’s restroom we will be assaulted, we will be raped … if that’s what you want, so be it,” said Naomi Bradley, with Trans Lives Matter Tallahassee.
“You all disgust me if you vote for this bill,” she added.
Bradley led a protest of the bill in the Capitol Tuesday, and led a chant of “trans lives matter” after the legislation was approved on a 7-4 vote by the House Government Operations Subcommittee. […]
A Senate version of the bill (SB 1464), sponsored by state Sen. Charlie Dean, R-Inverness, does not include the term “single-sex,” or set definitions for “male” and “female,” which is in Artiles’ bill.
Dean’s version makes it a second-degree felony for anyone to knowingly enter places like bathrooms or dressing rooms with “the intent to harass or engage in harassment, lewd behavior, assault, battery, molestation, rape or voyeurism.”