(Bloomberg) — Three transgender youths sued Oklahoma in a challenge to a recently enacted state law barring them from using school restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their gender identity.
(Bloomberg) — Three transgender youths sued Oklahoma in a challenge to a recently enacted state law barring them from using school restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their gender identity.
The suit, filed Tuesday, targets Senate Bill 615, which was signed into law in May by Governor Kevin Stitt, a Republican. The statute requires all public schools to limit access to restrooms and locker rooms based on a student’s gender assigned at birth. School districts must create discipline policies for those who violate the restrictions.
Schools that don’t comply with the requirement will be punished with a 5% reduction in state funding. The law also allows parents to sue schools over alleged violations.
Lawsuits challenging statewide bans are relatively new, with a similar law in Tennessee contested in court earlier this year. Earlier cases focused on anti-transgender rules in individual schools and districts, with the challengers winning rulings that were upheld on appeal.
In the Oklahoma suit, the plaintiffs claim SB 615 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, gender identity and transgender status.
The suit was filed by the nonprofits Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union, as well as the pro bono group of the law firm Covington & Burling LLP.
“I am a boy, and while living authentically hasn’t always been easy, it’s given me a sense of relief and happiness,” one of the plaintiffs, Andy Bridge, 16, said in a statement. “Being able to use the boys’ restroom might seem like a small thing to others, but it is a vital step in my transition.”
Read more: Transgender Boy Wins Bathroom Fight as Top Court Spurns Case
SB 615 sponsor state Senator David Bullard, a Republican, said upon the bill’s signing that his legislation will protect students’ rights to privacy in school bathrooms.
“We must not allow the shrills of the far left to replace facts,” Bullard said in a statement. “The fact is there are only two sexes, male and female.”
A media representative for Oklahoma’s Department of Education didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
The transgender youths’ lawsuit names Oklahoma’s education department as well as three public school districts and one public charter school. Numerous government officials are also named in the suit
“It is sad that anti-transgender state legislators nationwide keep singling out transgender students for harmful, discriminatory treatment, notwithstanding that we and our allies have successfully quashed these efforts wherever they have popped up,” Nicholas Guillory, a lawyer with Lambda Legal, said in a statement.
Oklahoma risks following the path of North Carolina, whose 2016 law restricting restroom access in public buildings cost the state billions of dollars in lost jobs and revenue and was ultimately blocked in court, Lambda Legal said.
(Updates with claims in fifth paragraph)
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