Washington State’s Law & Justice Committee Passes “Genital Check” Bill

The Washington State Senate’s Law & Justice committee just passed Senate Bill 6548, which has to do with use of gender-segregated facilities. In other words: it’s a potty law, and its fourth point at the bottom of the bill is perhaps most pertinent to transgender people in that it allows private or public entities to bar trans people from using the bathroom matching their gender identity. This effectively forces trans people to use the bathroom that matches their genitalia (if they are pre-operative, non-operative, or otherwise).

The Law & Justice Committee oversees the bills coming through the state senate, and the fact that this ridiculous bill has passed through them–and is thus considered a just bill–is staggering.

The text of the bill regarding genitalia reads:

Nothing in this chapter prohibits a public or private entity from limiting access to a private facility segregated by gender, such as a bathroom, restroom, toilet, shower, locker room, or sauna, to a person if the person is preoperative, nonoperative, or otherwise has genitalia of a different gender from that for which the facility is segregated. Nothing in this chapter grants any right to a person to access a private facility segregated by gender, such as a bathroom, restroom, toilet, shower, locker room, or sauna, of a public or private entity if the person is preoperative, nonoperative, or otherwise has genitalia of a different gender from that for which the facility is segregated.

Fuck all of that.

As Danni Askini’s tweet posits: who the hell is going to check for genitals outside of all the bathrooms in the state of Washington? Doesn’t that sound a little ridiculous and unreasonable? If so, then is this something where it’s left up to the individual property/space owners to profile someone on what genitals they’re assuming they have? Gross.

It’s bad enough we can’t walk around at night without being worried about violence or sexual assault, now we can’t even use the bathroom. Come on, Washington state. You can do better than this.

(featured image via Shutterstock/sasipixel)

—Please make note of The Mary Sue’s general comment policy.—

Do you follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?

Have a tip we should know? tips@themarysue.com

Author

Close

Jessica Lachenal

Jessica Lachenal is a writer who doesn’t talk about herself a lot, so she isn’t quite sure how biographical info panels should work. But here we go anyway. She's the Weekend Editor for The Mary Sue, a Contributing Writer for The Bold Italic (thebolditalic.com), and a Staff Writer for Spinning Platters (spinningplatters.com). She's also been featured in Model View Culture and Frontiers LA magazine, and on Autostraddle. She hopes this has been as awkward for you as it has been for her.

twitter