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CV NEWS FEED // Ohio is close to passing a bill that would require all students to use bathrooms and locker rooms corresponding with their biological sex at their schools.
Dayton Daily News reported that the state Senate voted 24-7 on November 13 to advance the bill. The only step needed to make Senate Bill 104 a law is Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s signature. He reportedly promised to sign the bill in June if it made it past the state House and Senate.
The bill also prohibits schools or universities from constructing gender-neutral, multi-occupancy bathrooms or locker rooms, but it allows for gender-neutral single-occupancy spaces, like a family restroom.
In addition, the bill prohibits schools from allowing male students identifying as females to share overnight accommodations with female students and vice versa.
Republican Sens. Jerry Cirino and Andrew Brenner sponsored the bill, which several other Republican state lawmakers supported.
“This is common sense policy that will ensure the safety and security of our school children,” Sen. Niraj Antani, a Republican, said, according to Dayton Daily News. “No young girl should be forced to go into the same restroom with a biological male.”
Ohio Board of Education member Brendan Shea testified in 2023 that the policy is important for children’s safety and development.
“If we teach children that the world should conform to their subjective identity or preference, they’ll become bitter and miserable and never live up to their God-given potential,” Shea said in a House committee meeting in October 2023, according to Dayton Daily News. ‘Fairness — whether fair treatment under the law or in the classroom — is treatment that comports with objective reality and facts.”
Dayton Daily News reported that while the bill passed without issue in the House and Senate, many Democrats objected to the fact that the transgender bathroom section was added to the bill in June. The bill had originally focused on Ohio’s College Credit Plus program.
“We’re ruining a good, bipartisan bill that had my name on it as well by adding hateful, toxic amendments,” Democrat Sen. Bill DeMora said, according to Dayton Daily News. “This bill will create suspicion and paranoia and fear that will affect both children and adults.”
Cirino noted that the bill “is offered with no animus towards students who are experiencing gender issues.”
