Miami Legal Tips Blog

Proposed Florida Bill Restricts Transgendered People

fl-transgender-bathroom-law-20150320The Single-Sex Public Facilities Act would seek to target Florida’s transgender population, which received legal protection from discrimination when the Human Rights Ordinance was passed in December 2014.

The proposed bill, filed by Rep. Frank Artiles (R) of Miami, would make it a crime to enter a public facility designated as single-sex if the person doing so was not born as a biological member of that gender. The law would apply to dressing rooms, showers, locker rooms, bathrooms, fitting rooms or any place where there is a “reasonable expectation of privacy.”

Being found in violation of the proposed law, a misdemeanor, would be punishable by one year in prison or a fine as high as $1,000.

Artiles told the Miami Herald that his proposed bill is in response to the recent ordinance protecting transgender rights: “My No. 1 concern is public safety,” he told the newspaper, adding, “It’s not that the transgender or the gender identity community is dangerous by any means,  but…a man such as myself can walk into the bathroom at LA Fitness while women are taking showers, changing, and simply walk in there. Someone can say, ‘What are you doing there?’ Under the ordinance, I don’t have to respond. It’s subjective. If I feel like a woman that day, I can be allowed to be in that locker room. I don’t know about you, but I find that disturbing.”

In response, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida notes that the proposed law amounts to a “show your papers to pee” ordinance, which “…invites humiliation and harassment of anyone who is not considered sufficiently feminine or masculine in the eyes of the beholder.”

Other states, most notably Utah and Arizona, have considered – and rejected — similar measures that restrict transgender people’s access to public facilities. On the other hand, a ballot measure that specifically permitted transgender people to use public facilities previously passed in Gainesville, precipitating outrage from some as well as a disturbing ad campaign.

 

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