In ‘Bathroom Bill,’ a Test of Transgender Equality

Somewhere off the phone line, his child is crying, and Frank Artiles takes a moment to attend to her. The Florida representative and Miami resident has just returned from an economic development trip to Peru, and he says he is tired.

The first half of the legislative session has just concluded, and since early February, when Artiles introduced a House bill that would prohibit people from using single-sex facilities that do not correspond with their biological gender, the Florida “bathroom bill” has made headlines.

Artiles, 41, says he keeps up with the “blogs,” the ones where politicians and human rights groups decry HB 583 as discriminatory, unenforceable and potentially illegal because it would override protections extended to transgender people using public bathrooms throughout the state.

But Artiles, whose bill has passed two House committees and is slated to be heard by a third, remains steadfast in his conviction that broad anti-discrimination codes that allow people to use single-sex facilities based on gender identity threaten public safety. What Artiles and those fighting his bill would agree on is that Florida HB 583 has become emotionally charged, inspiring activism from New College of Florida to Tallahassee by those who say the bill targets a diverse transgender population fighting for equal rights on the state and federal level.

Artiles says those who call his bill discriminatory are “muddying” his true goals — to keep the mainstream population safe from anyone, but particularly men, who would take advantage of broad legal language to enter restrooms to commit crimes. But he also makes no secret of his questions and concerns about changing laws for people who are transgender, an umbrella term for those who identify with a gender that is different than their biological sex.

And on this he is clear: public safety must trump inconvenience for a population that he argues is too small to dictate policy.

“I am one man, one person against a movement, a movement to blur the gender lines in order to benefit a minority,” he told the Herald-Tribune earlier this month.

Artiles says there has been a consistency in every committee stop — the “countless” transgender people who have walked to the podium or stepped into his office and said, “What about my feelings?”

Here’s his response: “What about my feelings? What about my wife’s feelings? What about the feelings of 99.7 percent of the population that are being endangered just to appease (you)?”

‘A Pandora’s box’

Artiles’ bathroom bill was prompted by a Miami-Dade County code, enacted in December, that the representative says is “a poor standard of any law.” Broad definitions of gender grant anyone with criminal intentions an excuse to gain access to “vulnerable” places like locker rooms and restrooms, he points out.

His proposed bill was recently amended to make it a second-degree misdemeanor to use single-sex facilities that conflict with the gender listed on drivers’ licenses or passports. Violators would face a $500 fine and up to 60 days in jail, and be liable to a civil lawsuit. Employers or business owners who do not enforce the law could also be liable.

“This flies in the face of all the work that our major employers have taken to develop fully inclusive employment policies,” said Gina Duncan, the transgender inclusion director for Equality Florida. “It puts employees at odds with the employers . . . and opens up a Pandora’s box of problems.”

Because Florida has no statewide anti-discrimination code that protects gay and transgender people from discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations, local jurisdictions have enacted their own protections, many of which differ slightly from each other.

Duncan says that 28 cities and counties in Florida have fully inclusive codes that include transgender citizens. In October 2014, without fanfare or opposition, Sarasota city commissioners voted to extend such protections locally.

“It’s wonderful that we are at this point right now,” Commissioner Susan Atwell said then. “This inclusion for gender identity and expression gives full value and true representation to all citizens in our community.”

But many local governments have always considered bathrooms an exception, Artiles points out. How that affects transgender people depends on where you are. Both Hillsborough County and the City of Sarasota have such exemptions, for example, but with important distinctions. Sarasota defines gender as the “state of being male, female or transgender.” Hillsborough County reserves the right to discriminate in bathrooms based on the state of being male or female.

Two weeks ago, St. Petersburg resident Jamey Grey hopped in a car with two friends, drove to Tallahassee and lobbied for the first time against a bill that she says “reeks of bigotry, prejudice and people afraid of the unknown.”

“I jumped at the chance,” said Grey, a woman who was born biologically male. “Because I feel so strongly that I am not different than you are.”

To understand why the Florida “bathroom bill” has been renamed the “transgender discrimination” bill by advocates is to explore how something as simple as using the restroom has led to complications, and sometimes danger, for the transgender population. Some note that this bill unfairly promotes unwarranted fears against transgender women, who identify as female after being assigned male at birth.

“It’s ‘which bathroom do I use?’ the unpleasantness that they have to face, and often people being very hostile to them when they’ve gone to the ‘wrong’ bathroom,” said Mary Davenport, a gender therapist who has practiced in Sarasota for the past two decades.

“To be able to use the bathroom of the gender of which you are representing is really critical to basic rights,” she said. “Can you imagine being at work all day or in public all day and not being able to use the bathroom?”

Artiles argues that gender-neutral, single-stall facilities are still options for transgender people. And that under the amended bill people who have changed their gender on driver’s licenses and passports wouldn’t be affected by the legislation.

But critics have said that line of thinking doesn’t take into account the diversity of transgender people or economic barriers to making legal identification changes. They also say the bill gives citizens the right to be “vigilantes,” and scrutinize a person’s appearance or body when they enter a bathroom.

There are various reasons why a person might not want or be able to pursue a legal ID change, said Cassandra Corrado, a 22-year-old New College of Florida student. Corrado organized a letter-writing event and shared guidelines for phone calls with students who wanted to communicate with their representatives against the bill.

The bill does not address people who identify outside the binary of male and female. And many transgender people, particularly students, are out to their friends but not out to their families, she points out.

Floridians can change their gender marker on driver’s licenses if they have letters from a therapist or doctor, post the name change in a newspaper and pay processing and legal fees. That’s not always feasible, Corrado said.