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Deutsch Potty Bill Lets AG off Hook, Still Discriminates Against Transgender Students

Published 2016-01-25 by Cory Allen Heidelberger

Rep. Fred Deutsch’s potty bill is still a paranoid monstrosity, but at least it won’t cost the state as much. House Bill 1008 survived its first hearing today in House State Affairs, with one important amendment.

HB 1008 still discriminates against transgender South Dakotans by assigning bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers according to biological sex as determined by chromosomes and the doctor’s call at birth. It still bans transgender students from using the public plumbing of their choice and requires public school administrators to discriminate against those students by providing them separate but equal accommodations.  It still lets nonpublic schools discriminate deny such accommodations to transgender students completely.

But thanks to Jeromy Pankratz from the Attorney General’s office, HB 1008 no longer obligates the Attorney General to represent public schools in any lawsuits arising from schools telling girls that they are really boys or boys that they are really girls. Evidently Pankratz said that requirement, Section 4 of HB 1008, could have landed the AG on both sides of a lawsuit. House State Affairs complied by striking Section 4.

HB 1008 as amended passed 10–3 and moves to the full House.

Published in South Dakota

7 Comments

  1. Feeling Blue in a Red State

    I wonder what this might mean for transgender staff or parents working and volunteering in the school.

    2016-01-25
  2. Jenny

    The GOP are just pee pee obsessed.

    2016-01-25
  3. mikeyc, that's me!

    What a bunch of dumbasses.

    2016-01-25
  4. Eve Fisher

    Simplest solution? Unisex bathrooms, no more showers. If the kids get whiffy, they get whiffy. That or Deutsch and his buddies just quit trying the regulate the universe according to them.

    2016-01-25
  5. jerry

    Good idea Eve Fisher, they can go home to shower, why should I have to pay the expense of hot water and the clean up of the locker rooms. Put stalls into and around the stools and urinals. Regarding games, the same, kids should be expected to dress in a surround stall as well, everyone wears a supporter on top and the bottom. We have plenty of money for stupid crap like that rather than paying teachers, so lets just do it. These potty bill dummies can put the design in for bids. Republicans, the creators of problems and non issues. That is how they roll. I should say, chiropractors. What the hell happened to this bunch to make them such a bunch of pervs and kind of icky?

    2016-01-25
  6. caheidelberger

    Feeling Blue, HB 1008 makes no mention of adult users of school facilities. It speaks solely of students.

    Check out this text in Section 2:

    Every restroom, locker room, and shower room located in a public elementary or secondary school that is designated for student use and is accessible by multiple students at the same time shall be designated for and used only by students of the same biological sex.

    Might this mean that adults (teachers, visitors, what have you) cannot use any bathroom that the school says students can use? Suppose Aberdeen Central hosts a debate tournament after school. If students are using the main bathrooms, no adults may use those same facilities. Aberdeen Central would have to open faculty bathrooms for all judges, coaches, and spectating parents.

    I wonder: does the above language also forbid a parent from accompanying his or her toddler into the bathroom, regardless of the sex of the child or the gender-designation of the bathroom?

    2016-01-25

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