“ANY MAN ANYTIME,” the screen reads.
Water pools on the bathroom floor and fluorescent lights flicker overhead. The man washes his hands as a female narrator tells viewers any registered sex offender could pretend to be a woman.
A young girl in a school uniform walks into a stall, and the man follows her. She looks up and the screen goes black.
This campaign video was made in opposition to the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, a city measure to ban discrimination against gay and transgender people that was rejected in November.
The question of which restrooms transgender people should use has sparked heated political debates across the country. Last month, the dispute was brought to the Indiana State Legislature in the form of Senate Bill 35.
This proposed legislation would mandate that restrooms in school buildings must be designated for either men or women and “may be used only by the students of the biological gender for which the facility is designated.”
By “biological gender,” lawmakers mean the sex an individual was designated at birth.
“It just hurts a lot because they’re saying that we’re impostors, that we’re pretending to be something we’re not,” said Aimes Dobbins, a transgender student at IU.
Dobbins, a junior studying queer advocacy, is a non-binary individual and identifies with them/their pronouns. Dobbins said this type of legislation is particularly difficult for them because it would eliminate the possibility for single-occupancy, gender-neutral restrooms in schools.
Dobbins said they found even the way the lawmakers used the word “gender” in the bill was offensive. Lawmakers noted that gender is how you identify yourself, while sex is what you are biologically assigned at birth.
SB 35 provides that violations of the regulations would be classified as class A misdemeanors, punishable by up to a year in prison or a $5,000 fine.
Dobbins argued the bill not only puts the physical safety of LGBT students at risk by forcing them into situations where they might feel threatened by those who don’t accept them, but it also might endanger these students’ emotional well-being.
“These are our identities,” they said. “It’s who we are as people. When you say a transgender person cannot use the restroom that they want to use, that invalidates who they are. It takes their identity, puts it on a platform and says ‘This is not you. You’re fake. You’re a liar.’”
Sen. Mark Stoops, D-Bloomington, agrees that the bill is discriminatory. He also called it unnecessary and unenforceable.
“I don’t think it’s a legitimate concern because it has never been a problem,” Stoops said of men using women’s restrooms to pray on unsuspecting women or children. “It’s a manufactured problem to undermine a given transgender individual’s rights in the state of Indiana.”
The religious right has found that the idea of men in women’s restrooms makes the general public uncomfortable, and they’ve tried to use that discomfort and exaggerate it in their marketing and political strategies, Stoops said.
The main author of the bill, Sen. James Tomes, R-Wadesville, did not return requests for comment. The other authors, Sen. R. Michael Young, R-Indianapolis, and Sen. James Smith, R-Charlestown, deferred to Tomes’ views on the bill.
SB 35 isn’t the only bill that seems to be targeting the transgender community in Indiana. LGBT activists have also expressed concern about Senate Bill 100, Senate Bill 66 and Senate Bill 344, all proposed by Republican legislators.
“I think transgender issues are still something that at least some legislators are trying to get comfortable with,” said Steve Sanders, an associate professor at Maurer School of Law.
“Gay and lesbian issues specifically have simply been part of public debate and discourse. Transgender issues are somewhat newer and I think they present some issues that are different than sexual orientation that some people are still having trouble understanding.”
Sanders said the wave of legislation regarding LGBT rights is likely in direct response to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
“The debate last year raised consciousness about the fact that LGBT citizens are not protected right now,” he said. “There are also still some lingering tensions. There are still some people upset among religious conservatives because they did not end up getting everything they wanted.”
Stoops predicted all of the legislation surrounding LGBT rights will make for an interesting debate in Indiana. Both Sanders and Dobbins guessed it will be a debate in which young people play a key role.
“It’s the youth that are promoting hope in the state,” Dobbins said. “I know that sounds so cheesy and cliché, but it’s true. It’s our generation that’s going to change things, and these bills are their way of fighting that.”
