OKLAHOMA CITY — Gov. Kevin Stitt on Wednesday signed into law a bill requiring students to use the school restroom that corresponds with the sex listed on their birth certificate, a move that an ACLU of Oklahoma official said opens the state to the loss of “hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.”
Schools would be required to make reasonable accommodations for students who do not want to follow the requirement.
Schools that fail to comply could lose up to 5% of their state funding.
The measure had an emergency clause, making it effective upon the governor’s signature.
“Transgender people are part of our families, our workplaces, and our neighborhoods, and they, like everyone else, need to be able to safely access restrooms,” said ACLU Oklahoma Executive Director Tamya Cox-Toure.
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“By singling out transgender students for discrimination and excluding them from restrooms that match their gender identity, SB 615 discriminates based on transgender status and sex in violation of the United States Constitution and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act.”
She said the violations put Oklahoma at risk of losing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding and harming transgender youth, all to solve a problem that does not exist.
“Transgender students already live and go to school in our state,” she said. “They go to the restroom just like everyone else, and their presence harms no one. SB 615 has and will continue to cause severe harms to transgender students who are just trying to live their lives and go to school alongside their peers.”
This is not the first anti-transgender bill Stitt has signed into law this legislative session.
Earlier this year, he signed Senate Bill 2, dubbed the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” prohibiting those assigned male at birth from participating in girls’ and women’s sports as transgender female athletes.
He also signed a law that does not allow nonbinary gender makers on birth certificates.
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On May 19, the Oklahoma Legislature passed a bill banning abortions at conception. The bill only needs to be signed by the governor to go into effect immediately. If that happens, it would become the most restrictive abortion ban in the United States.
