Nonsensical New Tennessee Law Might Force the State’s First Trans Elected Official To Use the Wrong Bathroom

Conservative politicians are obsessed with bathrooms. Being from North Carolina, home of the notorious HB2, I’ve seen firsthand how Republicans weaponize “safety” concerns to demonize trans people, and often successfully. For cisgender people, it can be easy to overlook the real-world impact of such laws. Most cis people go to the bathroom and their biggest concern is how clean it will be. The transgender community has to worry about so much more. In Tennessee, even a sitting lawmaker has to be concerned about where she can do something as basic as relieve herself.

Olivia Hill became the first openly transgender person to hold elected office in the state when she was elected to the Nashville Metro Council just a few weeks ago, on September 14. While this was a great and historic win, a law that went into effect on July 1 would now cause actual concern for a sitting elected official.

Senate Bill 1440/House Bill 239 codifies sex, stating it to be “a person’s immutable biological sex as determined by anatomy and genetics existing at the time of birth and evidence of a person’s biological sex.” There’s blurriness in the law and its application, as some trans people have changed their legal documents and this law does not require them to be changed back. It does say that those documents need to match the sex listed on a birth certificate, which, in Tennessee, can not be altered. Hill told The Daily Beast that she doesn’t plan on changing her license back but discussed possible troubling scenarios. For example, she mentioned how if she got pulled over, provided her license, was asked if everything was correct, and said yes, she would technically be providing a false ID, which is a felony. This kind of situation seems wild but that is what happens when conservatives overreach.

Hill and other transgender people also do have to worry about bathroom usage. The new law does not explicitly say that trans people like Hill must use the restroom in accordance with how they have now defined sex, but loopholes are causing anxiety. These laws can be used to target and demonize a demographic that many may already not like or understand. Being a politician, Olivia Hill can be an even bigger target. While doing her duties in council buildings, she has to worry about which restroom to use. She is a woman and uses the women’s restroom, and it simply doesn’t make sense (and is potentially dangerous, not to mention humiliating) to force her to use the men’s room, but this vague law makes it possible for anyone who wants to, to discriminate against her. 

Ambiguity in the law can cause a lot of stress within the transgender community and I feel like in many ways, this is the point. Conservatives have become more cruel in their efforts to rile people up in order to obtain power. The constant fear that LGBTQ+ people are feeling, especially in some states like Tennessee, is not something Americans should tolerate. Hill has said she has received a warm welcome from fellow council members, which is nice to see—although, as The Daily Beast notes, “operating on good faith can be dangerous.”

I hope Hill can live freely as she tries to make a real difference in her community. 

(via The Daily Beast, featured image: IrKiev/Getty Images)

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