Arkansas Advances Bill Criminalizing Trans Adults Using Public Restrooms in the Presence of Minors

Arkansas just voted to advance an anti-trans bathroom bill that would make it a crime to be a trans adult in a public facility where minors are present. 

The Arkansas Senate Judiciary Committee voted Senate Bill 270 forward on Monday, meaning that it is now up for consideration by the full Senate, which is dominated by Republicans. The bill amends Arkansas’ penal code with regards to sexual indecency with a child, and would add a subdivision for being 18 years or older and entering into and remaining in a public changing facility while knowing a minor of the “opposite sex” is present. The only exceptions are if the minor is under seven years old and the person is the minor’s parent, guardian, family member, or other caretaker; for maintenance or inspection purposes; or for medical assistance. Infringement would be classified as a class C misdemeanor, which carries a $500 maximum fine and up to 30 days in jail. 

At the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on Monday, bill sponsor Senator John Payton framed the bill as such: “The bill doesn’t make it illegal to go into the wrong facility as assigned to your sex, but it does make it illegal to knowingly remain in there if a minor is present. If we’re going to respect the desire of someone to go in the wrong facility, we need to respect the desire of other patrons not to be exposed to that.”

According to legislative researcher Erin Reed, SB 270 is the first bathroom bill to move forward since North Carolina’s bathroom bills, which were introduced in 2015 and fully repealed in 2020. In that same tweet, she also mentioned Tennessee’s bathroom bill, which would have mandated businesses with gender-inclusive restroom policies to hang signage reading: “This facility maintains a policy of allowing the use of restrooms by either biological sex, regardless of the designation on the restroom.” The law was permanently enjoined by a federal court in 2022. 

At the meeting, Sarah Everett, policy director for the ACLU of Arkansas, noted that if it were to pass, “this would be the most extreme bathroom ban in the country.” 

According to a report from KUAR, Senator Clarke Tucker spoke out against the bill, noting that Arkansas legislators have continuously proposed bills that do not actually address the issue they purport to, in this case protecting minors from sexual abuse. 

“There’s no evidence whatsoever that this bill is needed, it wasn’t cited. We would be the first state to pass a law like this, so Arkansas, if this bill passes, will take an unprecedented step toward criminalizing being transgender in America,” Tucker said. “We also are consistently passing bills out of committees this session without giving them the scrutiny that they deserve, and this is just the latest example.”

Chase Strangio, the Deputy Director for Transgender Justice at the American Civil Liberties Union, slammed the absurdity of the bill, tweeting, “If my 10 year-old child came into the restroom with me, that could be a crime.” He added that going to the bathroom in the courthouse during a trial would also be a crime, as would going to the bathroom at a restaurant at dinner. 

“This is what happens when people say over and over that we are groomers,” Strangio tweeted. “That we are threats to children. What about our own children. What about the people who love us?”

Although Arkansas’ governor Asa Hutchinson vetoed the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans minors in 2021, the House and Senate voted to overturn that veto, making it the first state to pass such a ban ever. Sadly, though, many other states followed suit, with Alabama, Utah, and South Dakota being the other three with such a law on the books. 

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