Rep. Zamarripa Opposes “Bathroom Bill” – Bathrooms In Schools To Be Regulated
Milwaukee – A Republican backed legislative bill, aimed at requiring school boards to designate school restrooms and locker rooms for use by one gender exclusively, is causing a stir in Madison as legislators argue in opposition or support of the law.
Assembly Bill 469 was initiated by Republicans in the Assembly to keep bathrooms and locker rooms for boys or girls only in public schools. The bill has eight Republican co-sponsors in the Assembly and three in the Senate.
However, those who stand in opposition to the Republican led law, including Representative JoCasta Zamarripa, argue that the law targets transgender students by not allowing them to use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity. In other words, Zamarripa supports that an individual who appears to look like a boy, should be allowed to enter into a girls bathroom because being a girl is what the individual identifies as.
“This legislation is one of many that have been introduced in capitols across the nation. It wasn’t written in response to any actual issues in our state. Rather, it’s the latest barrage against the LGBT community from well-funded national conservative organizations dedicated to enshrining discrimination against transgender children into law. This bill’s authors are simply water carriers for this larger movement, which seeks to demonize and shame transgender students. Encouraging discrimination against a population of children that already suffer from high rates of depression and suicide is unconscionable”, said Zamarripa in a statement.
The “bathroom” bill will be heard by the Assembly education committee this week. The bill, was introduced by Rep. Jesse Kremer, R-Kewaskum, and Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater.
According to the authors of the bill, AB469 allows for transgender students to have “reasonable accommodations” to use a single-occupancy changing room or restroom, but clearly the bill is opposed to allowing transgender students from using bathrooms or locker rooms the general student population uses as for boys or for girls.
Zamarripa and other opponents to AB469 say that the bill singles out transgender students by requiring them to use a bathroom that allows for them to identify with their biological gender.
That does not sit well with groups like Fair Wisconsin who say that “It singles out, isolates and stigmatizes transgender students, who often already face harassment and exclusion at school. It also undermines the advances many school districts across Wisconsin, and the nation, have made allowing students to use facilities and participate in sports and activities consistent with their gender identity,” said Fair Wisconsin interim executive director Megin McDonell in a statement.
Recently Democrats introduced changes to the Republican legislation requiring that the state Department of Public Instruction develop a model policy regarding transgender students and require each school board in the state to adopt its own policy.
Rep. Sondy Pope, D-Cross Plains, and Sen. Nikiya Harris Dodd, D-Milwaukee proposal would require the state Department of Public Instruction to develop a model policy regarding transgender students. The bill would also require each school board in the state to adopt its own policy.
Rep. Jesse Kremer, R-Kewaskum, and Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, say their bill, “reinforces the societal norm in our schools that students born biologically male must not be allowed to enter facilities designated for biological females and vice versa.”
“Transgender students are constantly under societal pressure to conform to their pre-assigned gender identity, and are often picked on in public and at school,” Pope said in a statement. “They are the students we should be protecting from discomfort and threats. We should be ensuring that schools create a safe learning environment, not foster even more hate by using the argument of ‘comfort’ to support discrimination.”
