The Board of Education in Florida passed a rule that barred students and staff from using a bathroom that does not correspond to their biological sex, which aligns with a law passed by the state legislature and signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
According to Fox News, the rule requires colleges to rework their policies to comply with state law.
The law, known as House Bill 1521, “provides requirements for exclusive use of restrooms & changing facilities by gender” and also “prohibits willfully entering restroom or changing facility designated for opposite sex & refusing to depart when asked to do so.”
Presidents of higher education institutions have to complete paperwork that confirms, by April 2024, that their restrooms and changing facilities are segregated by sex.
Board member Grazie Christie, quoted by a local news outlet, said that single-sex restroom spaces should be preserved. “Bathroom spaces are very intimate and private,” said Christie, “There is historically and cross culturally accurate reasons why males and females use different spaces in those intimate moments, not just for girls and women, but also for boys and men.”
She added, “This is not something that as a culture we should ditch because of very, very new ideologies that are challenging the science of male and female, which doesn’t change because biology doesn’t change.”
LGBTQ+ groups criticized the rule’s passage as unfair and discriminatory.
