Transgender bill opponents raise concerns as House eyes vote
Antonio Caban/SHNS
A group opposed to a transgender public accommodations bill tentatively scheduled for debate in the House next week held a rally Tuesday at the State House to raise concerns they have with the legislation.
As House leaders gear up for a potential floor vote next week on a transgender rights bill, opponents of the measure returned to the State House Tuesday hoping they could have better luck convincing House members to oppose the legislation than they did with senators.
House leaders have tentatively circled next Wednesday as the day that branch will debate and vote on legislation that would extend anti-discrimination protections to transgender individuals in public accommodations, including in bathrooms.
The bill would allow people to use public facilities that match their gender identity rather than their biological sex, a change that has raised concerns about privacy and public safety with the Massachusetts Family Institute.
The MFI brought roughly 100 parents and children to the State House to speak against the bill, recreating a event they organized before the Senate debate when only about a dozen supporters showed up.
The Senate two weeks ago passed a version of the transgender rights bill on a 33-4 vote. House Speaker Robert DeLeo, a supporter of the bill, has not publicly committed to a timeframe for the House to consider the bill but time is winding down on formal sessions, which end on July 31.
A spokesman for DeLeo said he could not provide any information about the vote schedule, but House leaders confirmed to the News Service Tuesday that Democratic leadership had begun polling party members in the House to gauge support for the bill with an eye on June 1 for a debate and vote.
Though Gov. Charlie Baker has signaled a potential willingness to sign the measure, one House leader said the speaker's office wanted to see how close the vote would be should the Legislature have to override a veto from the governor.
Massachusetts Family Institute Executive Director Andrew Beckwith said the concerns he and others opponents have raised have been dismissed by supporters of the bill as intolerant.
"In the past several weeks, I've heard from numerous mothers and fathers who are intimidated into silence about this issue by transgender advocates and left-wing legislators who attempt to bully and shame people into conforming with their radical and extreme agenda," Beckwith said. "But I'm proud to stand here today and tell you we won't be silenced."
Beckwith said the bill, as written, would make it impossible for law enforcement to protect women and children from men who claim they identify as women simply to gain access to women's bathrooms and locker rooms.
"I'm happy to talk to members of the House if they have ideas, but really it's kind of a zero-sum privacy game, because right now if this law's passed it would not be illegal for a man to go into a women's restroom and get undressed and watch a woman get undressed," Beckwith said.
Supporters of the bill, including Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman William Brownsberger, have argued that it is already illegal for a man to expose himself or peep on women in a bathroom, and they could be prosecuted under current law.
Ashley King and Justin Dobbs, both parents of four children, said they were concerned about the safety of their children.
King, who lives in Westford and sends her children to private school, called privacy a "basic human right" and said the bill "leaves an incredible amount of space for manipulation."
Twelve-year-old Summer Stubblebine also spoke out against the bill.
"When I first heard about the transgender bathroom bill, I have to admit that I started to laugh. I thought it was a joke. I mean, the fact that I have to march all the way down to Boston to the State House to plead with a room full of adults not to let boys into the girls bathroom is just shocking," Stubblebine said. "I always thought that laws were created to protect us."
Stubblebine said if any of her peers are struggling with their gender identity they should use the private bathroom in the school's administrative offices. Transgender teens, in testimony to lawmakers over the course of the debate, have rejected that option as a form of segregation that can lead to additional bullying.
"Does this mean that I can come to school next week and feel like being a cat and demand that litter boxes be placed in all the middle school bathrooms?" Stubblebine said. "What happened to science, to reality, and to truth. It doesn't take rocket science to tell you that boys and girls are different. Protecting modesty and privacy is a common sense right that even a kindergartener could argue for."
Beckwith cited as evidence of the lawmakers being out of touch with public sentiment a recent May 15-16 Rasmussen survey that found 51 percent of American adults oppose President Barack Obama's guidance that schools allow transgender students to use bathrooms that conform to their gender identity. Opposition to the idea was down from 64 percent last November, according Rasmussen.
In Massachusetts, however, a recent Boston Globe/Suffolk University poll found 53 percent support among likely voters for legislation to allow transgender individuals to use the bathroom that conforms to their gender identity. The Globe poll did not ask specifically about school policies for students.
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